


A Different World

by WordCubed



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Death, F/M, Gen, Genocide, M/M, Multi, Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-05-01 16:36:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 67,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5213027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WordCubed/pseuds/WordCubed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a different world. The Three-Tails heals Rin and Obito takes her to Madara. Sakumo never saved his comrades. Sasori never betrayed Sand. Orochimaru's experiments were never horrifying enough that he had to flee Leaf. Tsunade's loved ones never died, so she never abandoned her village. But Madara still wants the Ten-Tails, and Pain still wants his revolution. The world is still screwed. AU. A reconstruction of Naruto where female characters and worldbuilding actually matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Shores

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It will never stop being funny to me that "Mangekyou Sharingan" just means "Kaleidoscope Copy Wheel Eyes". Like, when the original Japanese audience read those words that's exactly what it meant to them. Shonen is deliciously corny and I love it.

Rin was dead, and Obito was cradling her body against his chest. That was all he could really grasp.

Corpse-filled trees reached towards the moon. His old teammate lay unconscious ten feet away. There wasn't room in him for any of that, just his dead best friend in his arms and the pain in his eye.

That and...

And she was still breathing. A wave of chakra crashed into him, so thick he couldn't breathe. The hole in her chest healed shut. The wave collapsed and she opened her eyes.

Rin's first thought was that the Pure Land _sucked_. It was dark, damp, and she had no idea what the spirit holding her was. And she still hurt. Her chest and her gut...

Oh no. No, no, no. She was still alive. Her chest was sore but the hole was gone, and that thing was still inside her.

"Rin," whoever was holding her up said. "It's me. It's Obito."

It was dark and she could barely make out their silhouette against the moon. Whoever it was did have a Copy Wheel, their single eye strangely visible in the dark. But Obito's voice didn't sound like that, his hair had never been that long, and his Copy Wheel Eyes never had that pattern. Also, Obito was dead.

"Listen," she said, grabbing their shoulder. "They... The enemy put something—a monster—inside me. If I go back to Leaf, it'll kill everyone. You have to kill me before that."

As she spoke, a roaring filled her head, a sound like waves crashing, and it grew louder and louder until she couldn't even hear their answer.

"I won't kill you," Obito said. He was panicking. Her death was burned into his Copy Eye, and he couldn't tell if it was past or future.

She couldn't even see them now. Water crept across her vision, pressing against her, filling her up.

"Take us back! Take her to Madara!" he screamed. In his eye her old death and a future one merged until oh sage she was dead right now.

Spiral Zetsu didn't find this loud, panicky Obito very interesting—it'd seen that plenty enough when it first met him. "Fine," it grumbled. It had already helped by replacing his arm and covering him like armor, so what was one more favor? Obito was still more entertaining than boring old Madara, and if it brought a second person home, things would get even more interesting.

* * *

A good plan succeeded even in failure.

Had Rin reached Hidden Leaf, the monster she carried would've destroyed it, killing her as it crawled out. Then Obito would come running back to him, strong and desperate and ready to ruin the world to undo the loss.

Had Rin's teammate sensed the monster and killed her before she reached Hidden Leaf, then Obito would come crawling back, stronger and more desperate than ever.

And had the monster seen fit to heal Rin, Obito would still come back, still strong and still so very desperate.

It was this last that brought Obito before him.

"Please," the boy said, "Lord Madara, you have to know a way to help her. There's something inside her, and it's trying to kill her."

Obito was still a fool. He failed to grasp that it was the monster that had saved her in the first place. Though he was correct that, without a seal, it would eventually kill her anyway. Either by slowly corroding her insides or by emerging all at once.

(It would be inconvenient if it emerged now. Fortunately, ever since this particular monster's first encounter with him decades ago, it was terrified of Madara's Kaleidoscope Copy Wheel. As far as this tailed beast knew, he still had it. It was for this reason that Madara had chosen this monster for his plan.)

"Madara, please," the boy repeated.

Obito was a fool, too, for begging. He was Madara's successor, and Madara Uchiha did not beg, he conquered. That the boy didn't even think to coerce him was an embarrassment.

There would be plenty of time to fix that.

Madara stood from his throne. "I do know a way to seal the monster." He strode towards the boy as imperiously as his 99 years would allow him.

Obito's face lit up. Madara cut him off before he could say anything.

"But you will be in debt even further than you were before. In return for this, you will sacrifice everything for the Eye of the Moon."

Obito nodded. "Yes, everything. Please, please, please, just help her before she dies again."

Three times a fool. The boy didn't realize that "everything" included Rin.

* * *

Rin pulled herself out of the water, coughing. This was also probably not the Pure Land, what with the almost-drowning.

So where was she? She was soaking wet, so was this a real ocean? (She tasted too much salt for it to be a lake.) Shouldn't she be cold?

She stood up and looked around. The mist was so dense she could barely see ten feet out. She was almost choking on it, and as she breathed it in she realized it was thick with chakra. She panicked for a moment, afraid it was poison, but calmed down after it proved to be heavy and unpleasant but not lethal. At least, not in the short term.

Through the mist, she could see the dock she stood on and two wooden pillars holding it in place. (A floating dock, technically, built to rise and fall with the tides, but that still didn't tell her a damn thing about where she was.) She placed her hand on the closest pillar, feeling the wood's grain. This wasn't an illusion. She was too clear-headed and there was too much detail.

Proper illusion techniques were twofold, draping the victim in a blatant unreality while forcing their mind into panic, lethargy, or red-hot fury so they wouldn't question it. Small details like woodgrain were a waste. If she could notice such things at all, then she was too calm for the illusion to work. Calm enough to debate with herself whether it was an illusion. That meant she could fight it.

"Release!" she said, forcing her own chakra to spike. She held it in, letting it corrode the foreign chakra in her mind and body. Nothing.

No illusion was invincible. Chakra that could weave into the mind and senses was too fine and delicate. It should've been easily shredded by that.

Option one: she was facing an illusion master so skilled they could repair the illusion before she could destroy it. She didn't even think that was possible.

Option two: she had been flickered several hundred miles to the nearest ocean. That was also terrifying; even a master of the body flicker couldn't move more than 100 miles.

She wasn't in the middle of the ocean, right? This thing _had_ to be connected to the shore. Right?! Where was she was this real why couldn't she feel the monster anymore... She was panicking for real now and started running along the dock. She didn't know what would happen if she reached land but she couldn't stay surrounded by sea and mist.

She reached land. It was steep and rocky and pitted with tide pools. She ran but mostly tripped uphill until it crested.

And she saw it. The thing inside her, one eye shut and the other open. She flung herself back as it snapped forward, jaws pulverizing down through meters and meters of rock as she rolled down to the waterline.

Even as she stood to run further it was lunging forward, trying to crawl out of its pit and into her ocean.

* * *

Kakashi groaned as he opened his eyes. He was still alive? Where was the enemy? And why did Obito's eye hurt so damn much?

He saw the current moment perfectly, Copy Wheel recording every little detail for him to recall later.

And he saw Rin dead, his hand, wreathed in lightning, thrust through her heart. Saw her eyes close, saw her body slide off his arm and collapse to the ground.

He'd already gained his third tomoe when he lost Obito. That was the image burned into his Copy Wheel before this—Obito, his entire left half crushed under a boulder, right eye socket empty and bleeding after giving his one exposed eye to Kakashi.

"I'll become your eye. I'll see the future with you," his stupid teammate had said. It was a stupid thing to say, trying to atone for Kakashi losing an eye thanks to Obito's stupid plan.

It was the greatest and the worst birthday present he'd ever gotten. It was his most precious possession.

Gone. He saw Rin dying instead. Teacher had said trauma awakened the Copy Wheel, each new tomoe marking new power paid for with a new horror. Kakashi had never seen more than three tomoe in a Copy Wheel Eye, and never heard anything of a level beyond that.

He pressed his forehead plate down over Obito's eye. He had never been more grateful for the seal teacher had placed on it. He couldn't turn off the Copy Wheel like a natural wielder could, but the seal suppressed it enough for him to endure.

He didn't need the Copy Wheel to see—didn't _want_ the Copy Wheel to see—that the enemy was dead. A dozen jounin, all black ops, and all run through with wood.

He walked into the center of four trees, ones which had definitely not been there earlier. They spiraled up to the moon, fifty feet high, seeping blood from another two dozen ninja—the trees had grown _through_ their bodies.

What the hell had happened?

* * *

It was done. The seal was in place. Madara straightened, now stiff from bending over as he made the seal.

"Obito," he said.

The boy looked up. Earlier, he'd been hovering by Madara, Copy Wheel watching as the old man made the seal. Now he sat on the ground, next to her cot (formerly his), knees pulled to chest. He was missing his arm again, Spiral having left them out of boredom, but Madara could just graft a new one using a spare Zetsu.

He was trying very hard not to judge the boy for being so weak. He remembered when he'd gained his Kaleidoscope, all those years ago, and how tired he'd been.

"Show me your new eye," he said.

"How did—"

"Spiral told me. Show me the Kaleidoscope."

That was a lie. Spiral hadn't said a thing. Madara knew exactly what it took to gain the Kaleidoscope. He'd arranged for the boy's old teammates to be sent out, and let Obito leave to meet them. He'd arranged for Obito to pay the cost—arranged for Rin to die, for Obito to break, for him to gain the power.

Now he wanted the satisfaction of seeing Obito flinch as the Kaleidoscope showed, the loss that birthed it forever burned into it.

It was beautiful, like all Kaleidoscopes. Black on red, a three-branched pinwheel. The end of each branch bent back, clockwise, in a wicked hook, width rapidly narrowing to a line, which touched the middle of the next branch, the hooks' inner sides forming a perfect circle around the pupil.

"Did it hurt this much when you got it?" asked Obito.

"Yes. And before you ask, the image does not go away. That's merely the price you pay for this incredible power."

"Did you... when you got it, how did—"

"I watched my best friend die," said Madara. It had been more than worth the price.

* * *

She was sitting on the part of the dock farthest from the monster. She'd stopped running here, realizing that the monster wasn't chasing her. Besides, the alternative was to run on the water... forever, probably. She idly stuck a hand in her ocean.

Her ocean? Yes, this was her ocean. She was trapped with the monster inside herself, and everything here was hers, so to speak. However that worked. It made about as much sense as an invincible illusion or an infinite body flicker.

She looked at the horizon. Yes, her elemental affinity was water, but she still felt an endless ocean, with one dock and (what looked like) one small island was a bit much.

She heard the loudest roar yet, and leapt to her feet only to be slammed back down by a wave of pure chakra. For a moment, it drowned her more than the ocean ever had. It passed, and she heard only silence after.

Something had changed. The mist itself felt different, still thick but no longer choking her with chakra. She stood up again and walked towards the island, slowly at first, then running.

She reached the island. The last section of the dock was leaned up against the steep, rocky shoreline. And attached to a floating dock, that meant... Did her mind have _tides_?

She walked up the last bit of dock—too steep for a civilian but slightly easier than walking on water for a ninja. When she reached the crest, finally able to look at the monster, it didn't lunge at her.

It couldn't. Sitting in a sort of giant tide pool, it was hemmed in by tall cliffs on three sides, with the rocky shore down to the ocean forming the fourth side of its pool. And where once had been open air, there were chains. Eight giant ones, each link nearly half her body size, attached to the edges of the cliffs and shore, with one attached to another chain stretched across the tops of the cliffs. They converged on a single giant lock, two stories above her. The lock had no keyhole, just a piece of paper with the word "seal" on it.

This was her first good look at the monster. It was a giant turtle, its shell the size of a large apartment complex, its head about a third as wide. One eye was still shut, armored growths surrounding it, the other open. Still, she'd never heard of giant turtle monsters before.

"What are you?"

It roared, sound crashing on her ears like a tsunami, and reared three flat, armored tails, each the size of a townhouse. They slammed into the surrounding cliffs, dropping house-sized chunks of rock into its pool.

Nine tailed beasts of legend. Beginning with the One-Tail, each stronger than the last, with the Nine-Tails the most terrifying of all. Walking natural disasters, their appearance brought doom and misfortune, and, less poetically, death. Lots and lots of death.

And she had the Three-Tails inside of her.

She knew the legends; its mere presence was a terrible curse. But she didn't know what she was supposed to do. All she could do was wait on the dock again, near the shoreline, certain that the seal would hold but unclear about everything else. She needed time to think, away from this thing inside her, in the real world and not her own head.

She tried consoling herself. She was alive. Tomorrow was a new day. And when she woke up, maybe she could pretend it wasn't there anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the original Japanese audience reads Naruto, all of the terms have actual meaning to them. Realizing that really helped me appreciate Naruto more, since once you translate all the terms, you can understand just how silly and fun the original series is supposed to be. I think that's something that gets lost in a lot of translations of Naruto, so I'm having a bit of fun trying to recreate that experience by making as small a language barrier as possible.


	2. After Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still trying to bridge the language gap in Naruto. The literal translation of jinchuuriki is "power of human sacrifice." "Living sacrifice" comes close without being quite that clunky a phrase and still being every bit as ominous. Hokage translates literally to "Fire Shadow." Also, "God's authority" is the literal translation of Kamui.  
> Izanagi and Tsukuyomi are left untranslated because, rather than being silly phrases Kishimoto made up while writing Naruto, they're actually proper names—specifically, the names of gods from Shinto mythology. (All of the Copy Wheel's named techniques are named after Shinto gods, in fact.) And outside of Hokage, ranks and titles are left alone because I'm probably already pushing my luck translating everything else :-)

* * *

She was wrong. In quiet moments she could hear it roaring and feel it raging. She felt trapped, wishing she could go to teacher for help, but knowing that if she went back now the Three-Tails would destroy everything.

Whenever Rin tried to sleep, she started drowning. Ocean filled her ears and lungs and she'd snap awake. She spent three days growing increasingly tired. On the third night she let herself drown, and she spent the whole night dreaming that she was treading water in a storm, always on the edge of exhaustion and death. She woke up barely rested.

"Rin," asked Obito, "Do you need help? 'Cause I can use my Copy Wheel to help you sleep."

He'd offered three times already, and before she'd turned him down because she knew from Kakashi how the Copy Wheel worked, what he'd feel with each use. She didn't want him to go through that just for a sleep aid. But she was being worn down—by the monster, not Obito.

(Obito was just doing that thing where he hovered around the few people who cared about him and constantly asked if they needed help. Which would've been kind of sweet, if Obito wasn't predictably worse at everything than them, and his "help" usually made things worse. Minato, Kushina, and Rin had gotten very good at gently deflecting his offers. He'd only gotten more insistent after death.)

It was day four and she was only getting more tired and grumpy. If she waited any longer she'd strangle Obito for irritating her, then collapse. Barely an hour ago she'd tried casting an illusion on herself, but the monster just shredded it. She was so worn that, at this point, the whole world could catch fire and she'd still just want to sleep.

She gave in.

"Yes."

Thanks to Obito, she finally got to sleep well that night. He wove an illusion to block out the dreams at night and block off the monster's torments during the day.

He didn't know why she was so reluctant for him to use the Copy Wheel—he hadn't even needed the Kaleidoscope. Getting his last tomoe for it hadn't even been that painful, and the flashback wasn't too bad.

He'd died. (Yes, he'd technically been alive when Zetsu had found him, but it _felt_ like he'd died, and he thought of it as dying.) But for all the pain, the memory was bearable. By then his exposed eye had already been given to Kakashi, and his entire right half lay pinned under a boulder. His Copy Wheel couldn't show him anything because he hadn't been able to see a damn thing, and while the crushing pressure he always felt was unpleasant, it wasn't so bad if he was moving.

* * *

He knew it wouldn't last. Rin _wanted_ the illusion, and a willing recipient normally made an illusion much stronger. Between that and the Copy Wheel, peerless as it was in the illusory arts, it should've been an eternal illusion. But a tailed beast was too strong. Her peace was broken by noon the next day.

He was asking about supplies.

"Are you sure you don't need other stuff? Like tampons?" he asked.

"No," she said, "I have a technique for that." Thank the sages for that, because she was leery enough asking the Zetsus about underwear. (She refused to wear the same damn clothes for however many months it took her to learn to control the Three-Tails.) When she'd asked it where it got fresh rations for her from, the Zetsu had simply shrugged and said there was nobody alive to miss them.

She looked intently at him. "Where did you get your clothes?" What unfortunate ninja had they been taken from?

"Oh, these are Madara's old clanwear. He even tailored them for me!"

She sighed. Of course. Of course Madara, whom Obito had been praising to the high heavens for days now, could fucking tailor clothes. Hidden Leaf's greatest traitor could do anything, apparently.

At least that was one less worry. She felt the tiniest bit better. But that small relief was dwarfed by her greatest concern: the illusion was rapidly fading, and she could feel the monster again.

Rin got that pinched, tired look that she always had when the monster was acting up.

"I can make it stop permanently," Obito offered as soon as he noticed. "The Kaleidoscope can control tailed beasts."

He was almost eager. He hadn't used it since the night Rin died, and the pain had faded. Sometimes he wasn't sure if she really had died, and the monster was a miracle worker that now sought to torment the very life it'd saved, or if she'd merely been brought back from the verge of death. But the Kaleidoscope showed her death, and it _felt_ like she'd died, and he'd thought of her as dead in that moment. But Rin was alive now and right in front of him; he'd spent four days with her. He'd gotten the most powerful form of the Copy Wheel for free!

He could tell she was at least considering it.

"Madara says I might even be able to remove the Three-Tails entirely with God's Authority," he said.

She raised her eyebrows at that. "Did you seriously name your eye 'God's Authority'?"

"Not my eye, its power," he said.

"That's almost as bad as teacher's Flying Thunder God nonsense."

"But I didn't name it."

Rin's opinion of Madara dropped, somehow, even lower. The greatest traitor in Leaf's history also had terrible taste in names.

"Obito, there are so many reasons not to take Madara's suggestions."

"No, I mean, that's how bloodline techniques work. The name just comes to you when you first use it. And with Kaleidoscope stuff, I already know what it can do and its limits and stuff without even messing around."

She was deeply skeptical about it, because it was horribly ridiculous (God's Authority!). But she also didn't know much about how bloodline techniques worked. Their precise mechanics were closely guarded secrets. That Obito was telling her so freely said a lot about how little his own clan had raised him.

She said yes because she was desperate and Obito was willing.

* * *

She pulled him out of the water. Then she waited for him to finish coughing.

Rin's mindscape _sucked_ , he decided, though he knew better than to tell her that. He couldn't believe he'd almost drowned just entering. As he stood and activated his Kaleidoscope, bracing himself for the sting of salt water in his eye that strangely never came, he learned something.

He was wrong. The Kaleidoscope still showed him the worst moment of his life: seeing Rin die. He'd thought her presence would make it bearable. Instead it was surreal, seeing her dead, feeling like he'd just seen his best friend die, and still seeing and knowing her, alive, right in front of him. The Copy Wheel was supposed to sweep aside all illusions, distractions, and trickery to show him the world as it was. Yet he still couldn't tell what was real.

But that was the past it showed him. In the present, he saw everything, already committing it all to memory. The Kaleidoscope effortlessly cast out nets of chakra, ready for him to pull and trap whoever he chose in an illusion. He could perceive the finest details, and use them to predict anyone's movements, sometimes even before they were aware of their own choices. It also guided his own movements, granting him a flawless grace beyond even Minato.

Its extraordinary power alone almost made him willing to keep using it through the flashback of Rin's death, through seeing her death and her corpse in every moment. But what really put it over the top was the _vision_. He saw the past and the present in exquisite detail, but he also saw the far future. He saw himself and everyone happy, living in a world where teammates didn't kill each other and clans didn't abandon their own. Every moment the Kaleidoscope was on he hurt, but he knew exactly what he wanted, and he knew exactly what it would take to get it.

He needed the Moon's Eye.

"Obito?" Sages, that was creepy. His Kaleidoscope was fixed on her, but his face told her he didn't really _see_ her.

"What? Oh, sorry. Well, uh, it's your mindscape. What do you want to try?"

There it was. That tight, blank look she'd always seen on Kakashi whenever he used the Copy Wheel. She saw it on Obito for the first time, and it seemed even worse than with Kakashi. But he _had_ volunteered to help her, and frankly, she needed it. The faster he helped her, the faster he could turn off that infernal Kaleidoscope.

They ran along the dock until they reached an island. A glance was all it took to take in everything—that was all the Copy Wheel needed. He saw the island. He saw the tall cliffs walling the monster in on three sides, and the great chains sealing it on the fourth. And he finally grasped what all this was. He should've realized earlier, but he hadn't quite made the connection until now.

His first teacher had been a seal master, and it hadn't been for nothing. He knew you could paint a storage seal on practically anything and store whatever you wanted inside. It just couldn't be alive. Dead things could only hold dead things, after all. If you wanted to stuff something _living_ in a pocket dimension, the medium had to be alive.

He also remembered the now very dire setback that the living medium would die when you pulled whatever was stored out.

Rin was a living sacrifice.

She saw him look at her, his face pale. "I know," she said.

"You!" the monster boomed like cracking ice, one red eye glaring to match Obito's. "How _dare_ you come here!"

It turned to look at Rin, head moving with the gravity of tides. "And how dare you bring this living curse into this sanctuary!"

"It's not much of a sanctuary with you in it," Rin shot back. "And I _asked_ him to come."

"This creature is a danger to us all," it said, words dragging them like a current.

"That's my line," said Rin. "And since you seem to be afraid of him, I'll make you a deal: if you let me get some sagedamned sleep, and stop roaring in my ears when I'm awake, I won't have to bring him here anymore."

Obito ignored the Three-Tail's words. His earlier glance had showed him everything he needed to know. It was physically impressive, to be certain. A giant turtle, fifteen stories tall, 180 feet wide, with its head a good sixty feet wide. Each tail was as wide as its head, and over 800 feet long. Every inch of it was covered in rocky armor plates, save for its open left eye. But sealed as it was, he didn't think it could do much more than make threats and, apparently, give Rin terrible headaches.

"Rin," said Obito. "I think I can remove this with God's Authority."

" _God_ 's Authority?" it said. "What arrogance. No god has ever radiated malice like you. The gods made the world, while you only promise its ruin."

Obito ignored it, because with Authority, he could pull this thing out of Rin without killing her—he _knew_ he could. Almost as importantly, it'd be the first of the tailed beasts he needed to complete the Moon's Eye. His vision filled with images of a beautiful, happy world, where he, Rin, and Kakashi finally got what they all wanted.

He could do this now and be that much closer to paradise.

Rin had been hesitating, but Obito seemed sure he could do it. "Go ahead. Get his thing out of me. Without me dying, obviously."

He nodded and began to concentrate.

"What do you see with your eye, monster?" Its voice was a riptide yanking his attention. "How much of the world will be left when you're done?"

He glared at it. "Shut up. _You're_ the monster."

He bored into its eyes, his own Kaleidoscope's pattern now mirrored in the beast's pupil. It whimpered like the last bit of water draining from a bathtub, then went silent.

Rin was pleasantly surprised. That eye really could control tailed beasts.

"Now," Obito said, "to remove it."

Rin tensed as he stepped past the chains and placed his hand on the monster. It stayed silent and still.

Nothing happened. Obito frowned. He couldn't use God's Authority. He couldn't phase out or rip open space. His personal dimension, where his body phased to and where he warped to when using Authority, was closed to him.

This couldn't be happening. Yes, he was... inside Rin's mind? And he didn't really know how things worked here, but this couldn't be happening. He refused to let it be. Getting the Three-Tails now would be perfect. Helping Rin would be perfect.

He tried to force his way in.

Rin lunged forward as Obito screamed and stumbled backwards into the chains. The Three-Tails was staring at him now, Kaleidoscope sigil no longer blinding it. She pulled him past the chains as he pressed his hand to his eye, clearly in pain.

She felt a massive spike in chakra, and her instincts told her to _get away_. She flipped him around, threw him over her shoulder, and leapt down to the dock. She hit it running.

She heard it roar, and when she chanced a look back she saw a wave so high it dwarfed the monster's island prison. Shit.

She looked forward again and tried running even faster, but that was difficult carrying Obito. Thrown over her shoulder, he must've sensed something she hadn't because a few seconds after her brief glance back, Obito yelled at her.

"Dodge far right!"

She snapped her hands through the signs (awkwardly, because her left arm was holding Obito, and she had to combine her hands by her own head, but medics were trained to make handsigns at odd angles because of just this sort of thing) body flickering twenty feet sideways. A bullet of water 30 feet wide bulldozed past them, snapping off every pillar on the dock.

She was already opening her mouth to yell, "I don't care how much your eye hurts, I need you to carry _me_ now," when she stopped herself.

Body flickering without the crippling vertigo? This changed everything! She looked back again, and the wave had formed into a giant version of the Three-Tails, now sliding across the water. Getting away was now much easier.

She flickered to the end of the dock.

"We're both getting out of here." She looked at the Three-Tails just in time to flicker sideways again, dodging another, even larger water bullet. Then another.

"Take a breath Obito, we're _diving_."

She stopped pushing chakra into her feet and fell into the water, just as one of the monster's tails slammed down on where she'd been standing. The force from it actually did a lot to push them further down.

* * *

Rin was so disoriented when she entered the real world, still carrying Obito, that she promptly stumbled to the ground. Her first coherent thought was "Am I okay?" As she disentangled herself from Obito, her second thought was "Is Obito okay?"

"Are you alright?" she asked him.

"I'm okay," Obito said, still pressing down on his eye.

She rolled her eyes because those words didn't mean a damn thing coming from him.

"Let me see your eye," she ordered. He dropped his hand because he'd learned ages ago not to defy her when she used her "medic voice."

His Kaleidoscope was still on, and it was bleeding. Blood was pouring out like from a bad cut, but she couldn't see one. Hand glowing with chakra, she pressed it to his eye, but found... nothing. There was nothing wrong.

"Turn off your Copy Wheel," she said.

His regular black eye faded into view. He blinked.

"It hurts less now," he said.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It'd been that easy all along. She didn't resist the urge to grumble.

"You're _killing_ me, Obito." He was so damnably attached to his Copy Wheel that he didn't even think to turn it off. It was a good thing he was a sensor now (something he'd mentioned _several times_ ), because otherwise he would've never been able to notice and warn her about the Three-Tails' attack. You know, what with refusing to power down his eye even while making it useless by pressing his hand to it.

Still, that must've been a lot of pain earlier. Last time she'd carried him while running, he'd whined about it. (He'd asked her if she could carry him bridal style. He'd said it with an odd wistful tone, and despite his broken leg and the enemies pursuing them at the time, she'd almost dropped him to the ground and slapped him on the spot for being _weird_ at the worst possible moment. Though in retrospect, he'd probably been delirious. She'd never had to choose between casting illusions on a patient or on enemies before, and, in her inexperience, she might've given him a few too many painkillers.)

"What happened?" she asked.

"I tried to use Authority. It didn't work, so I forced it. I got backlash," he said.

"Then what was that thing you did to the monster before that?"

"That was generic Kaleidoscope stuff," he said. "I'm sorry, Rin."

Apparently the Kaleidoscope wasn't nearly as powerful as Obito seemed to think it was.

"For what? You tried. I hoped it'd work, but I wasn't counting on it." She winced as soon as she said that. Obito had always resented everyone's lack of confidence in him. Even hers, though she usually broke it to him more gently.

He seemed to brush it off.

"Are _you_ alright, Rin?" he asked. He was rubbing his eye now.

"I'm—" the Three-Tails was silent and she actually felt pretty damn good. Obito might've screwed up, but she'd gotten her team out just fine.

"I'm good," she answered. He was still rubbing his eye.

"Sorry, I messed up. I need to go. I have to talk to Madara," he said. He stood up to leave. The vision of a better world haunted him even without the Kaleidoscope. He'd never wanted anything so much in his life. He needed answers. But mostly, he wanted to know more details about the Eye of the Moon.

Rin waited for a little bit, to see if the roaring would come back. The Three-Tails remained silent. Huh. It really had worked. She decided to nap, if only to test how long its silence would last. She ended up sleeping through until the next morning, not drowning even once the whole time.

* * *

So, the boy's Authority didn't work in mindscapes. Madara had been wondering about that. He'd encountered living sacrifices before, but experience only taught him how his own Kaleidoscope worked.

"Why didn't it work, sir?" Obito asked him.

"Because a living sacrifice's mindscape is in between an illusion and a proper dimension. And it's shaped jointly by the sacrifice and the prisoner," he answered.

"But I thought you said it would—"

"I said it _might_ work, boy," interrupted Madara. Had he ever been this petulant as a child? It was grating. "But if it didn't work, then that means, on some level, she doesn't want it removed."

Obito gaped at him.

That was a lie—probably. It was likely the Three-Tails that blocked him. If it had glimpsed Obito using Authority beforehand, the monster could've prepared against it.

A pity. Rin was still a living sacrifice, and there was no avoiding the seal's costs. Clever use of Authority or not, if Obito had removed the Three-Tails, she would've died. That was the plan, after all.

"Lord Madara, sir," said Obito, "could you tell me more about the Moon's Eye?"

Madara smiled. He'd been waiting for this moment.

* * *

It was their first real fight. Rin was grateful for his help, yes, but the Moon's Eye plan sounded horrible. On top of that, the monster was giving her headaches again.

She was glaring at him. "It's a dumb idea, Obito."

But it was actually the best idea he'd ever heard, because she'd almost died and he saw her die and she could still die and none of that would happen under Infinite Tsukuyomi.

She had her hands on her hips, stubbornly not giving an inch. "It's slavery. Psychic slavery," she said.

"It won't be slavery if everybody wants it," he said, arms crossed and glaring right back. His Kaleidoscope made it much more intimidating when he did it. It also made the monster worse. The sea drowned out whatever he was saying now, and she forced down her impulse to talk louder over an imaginary ocean. She was a ninja; she could fake it as long as she had to.

"You're not asking anybody's permission. And it won't even be real. You want to kill dozens—hundreds?" she asked. "Thousands? For nothing. For a big lie."

Why didn't he understand? Madara's plan was horrifying. Too many people would die just from taking the tailed beasts. And once they were gone, another war would start.

Every step required killing more and more people. All for something that wasn't even _real_. The tailed beasts were just to power an inescapable lie. Tsukuyomi was the strongest illusion technique of all, or so Obito claimed, but it was still just an illusion. Making it infinitely strong and etching it into the moon itself couldn't change that. It wasn't world peace, just burying violence under lies.

"It's. Not. Real," she bit out. It was faker than the ocean wearing her down.

He shook his head.

"It doesn't matter if it's real," he said. Madara had been pressuring him to keep his Kaleidoscope on throughout the day. When he looked at Rin, he saw her dying, her standing before him frowning, and her living happily under Infinite Tsukuyomi, all at once. He wasn't quite sure which was happening right now, if that even mattered. "What matters is if it _feels_ real."

He walked away because it always felt odd seeing her dead and alive at the same time.

* * *

Kakashi shuffled out of the Fire Shadow's office. He felt numb. The last thing he'd felt—really felt—had been Rin's corpse as it slid off his arm. That had been a week ago.

"Kakashi."

Kakashi blinked. His father was standing right in front of him, and he'd barely noticed.

"We haven't talked since your last mission," father said. He was head of the Hatake clan; Kakashi should've spoken to him immediately after debriefing.

Kakashi had been avoiding this. He didn't want to talk. And he didn't want to remember, but he did anyway.

* * *

"You're just going to abandon Rin?" Obito had yelled at him. Rather unnecessarily, too. He was barely two feet from Kakashi, it's not like he needed to be that loud.

The other boy was so angry his fists were shaking. Kakashi just brushed him off.

"A ninja puts the mission before everything else. Even their own, or their teammate's, life."

Obito slammed into him. They fell to the ground and wrestled for a moment. Kakashi was pinned to the ground, facing Obito. He let the other boy have his moment—Obito was terrible at, well, everything really. An awful ninja all around, so it'd be easy enough to put him in his place.

"I believe Sakumo Hatake is a traitor and human garbage," Obito said.

Obito found himself with a bloody nose, pinned to the ground in turn by Kakashi, and his black hair soaking wet from the puddle he was now laying in.

"My father is a greater ninja than you will ever be," Kakashi spat.

"Sakumo _could've_ saved his comrades—" Obito yelled right in his face.

"The mission is always more important," Kakashi cut in, refusing to yell like Obito because he was better than that.

"He threw them away! He let them die so he could succeed! He as good as murdered his own teammates!" Obito said, still too loudly.

"He did what was necessary," Kakashi hissed. "You should do the same."

Obito slammed his hand into Kakashi's throat as hard as he could. So not very hard at all, but it was enough to loosen Kakashi so Obito could push him off. They both stood, glaring at their terrible, terrible teammate.

"Can't you be better than that?" asked Obito. "All I've ever wanted is for you to care. Can't you trust us, be _human_ with us?"

He paused, and his face fell when Kakashi said nothing.

"I wish you did," Obito added, so softly Kakashi almost missed it. Then he turned to leave.

Kakashi shook his head. The other boy still didn't get it, but if he let Obito go off on his own, then the mission really would fail.

That was the day Obito died. And it was the day that Kakashi had the first inkling that maybe, just maybe, he was missing something very important.

* * *

Kakashi Hatake looked at his father, the greatest ninja of his generation, the man he'd idolized and striven to become. As he felt his teammate's corpse slide off his arm for the hundredth time, he realized he was now exactly the man he'd wanted to become.

"Father," asked Kakashi, "Do you ever regret killing your teammates?"

Father didn't seem happy with the question. "I didn't kill them. We all understood, as ninja, that sacrifices sometimes have to be made to ensure the success of a mission. A true ninja accepts that duty without question."

Sakumo was quiet for a moment, watching his unresponsive son. "I thought I raised you to understand that."

* * *

Obito wondered how Kakashi was doing. Rin had said that Kakashi seemed a lot more open now, and he looked forward to meeting him again. He knew they could finally be good friends, that Kakashi would finally be the brother he'd always wanted him to be.

And if he wouldn't, or he was dead, well, that's what the Moon's Eye was for.

* * *

The Heart's Curse Tag was magnificent. It curled around the victim's heart, brutal and straightforward, driving them towards a single goal.

Rin's had been to return to Hidden Leaf and release the Three-Tails. A shame she got it stabbed out of her.

Madara had set Obito's as soon as Zetsu brought him in. Obito was already being consumed by it, obsessing over the Moon's Eye and the illusion it brought.

There was a second curse, too—the Curse of Hatred that lay dormant in every Uchiha's Copy Wheel Eyes. The Copy Wheel burdened the user with the worst of their past, and in return granted them peerless insight into the present. That much was common knowledge, at least among Uchiha. But its greatest power was awakened with the Kaleidoscope. It showed the future, filling an Uchiha with a brilliant vision of all their greatest ambitions realized. The Curse made them willing to burn everyone to ash to make that vision real.

Obito had seen his best friend die, and would continue seeing her die. In return, the Kaleidoscope would show Obito a world where nothing bad could ever happen to the people he cared about. And he would drown continents and set oceans on fire to make it come true.

* * *


	3. Growth & Decay

* * *

Minato turned around, saw white hair, and immediately stiffened. As Fire Shadow, Minato took pains to not be a distant authority figure. He didn't want his title to alienate people. On the other hand, he didn't like Sakumo very much.

"I apologize for bothering you, Lord Fourth," said Sakumo, "but could you please talk with my son?" He looked like a tired old man. It had nothing to do with his thick white hair, signature of the Hatake clan. Sakumo was a man bewildered by a world out of sync with his ideals, worn down from dealing with it.

"I'm also concerned about Kakashi. I was already planning to speak with him," Minato said, polite but offering nothing more.

"Could you fix him?" asked Sakumo. "Since he came back from his last mission, he's stopped listening to me."

"People aren't things to fix," he said, as curtly as he could to a soldier almost twenty years his senior.

Sakumo was silent for a moment. Minato always had a hard time reading him.

"Just talk to him, okay? I—," he hesitated, "I think he's done something he regrets. Something I hoped he'd never have to do."

Minato kept the surprise off his face.

Sakumo was incredibly popular among civilians, hailed as a hero for stopping Hidden Rock's invasion of Fire Country in the Third World War's early days. But among his peers, he was decidedly less admired. ("Comrade Killer," they whispered whenever he wasn't around.) Sakumo's obsession with duty had led him to break an unspoken rule—one valued more than any written one.

Did he regret it?

Then Sakumo was gone. He'd merely leapt a few stories up to a nearby roof, but used an illusion to make it look like he'd flickered. It was the sort of casual, yet practiced, display of skill that many associated with the Hatake clan.

Minato dismissed his doubts. Uncompromising men deserved no pity. Minato treasured his friends and family above all else, and had learned to bend and compromise to care for them. Sakumo never had, if he valued such things at all.

* * *

Rin and Obito had silently agreed to set aside their argument and simply not bring it up anymore. The alternative was avoiding each other and being painfully lonely. Her only other company was a tailed beast and his was a creepy hermit. Fortunately, the monster only acted up around Obito's Kaleidoscope, and she still slept just fine.

This had gone on for a week.

"Oh, I never asked you," said Obito as he sat down next to her. "How's your grandmother?"

His eye was normal. Good.

She sighed before answering his question.

"She's really hoping I'll stay a special jounin." Grandmother hated Rin's ambition. She'd already lost her entire clan in the first war, then one of her daughters in the second, and didn't want to lose her granddaughter, too.

"Wait, you're a special jounin?" It was horribly unfair that he was the worst on his team _again_. He'd already spent the longest as a genin. Even when Kakashi had made jounin, there was the knowledge that he was at least still Rin's peer. Now— _at fifteen_ —she was a special jounin, while he'd struggled to make chunin a little over a year ago.

Rin was less impressed with her rank than he was. Special jounin meant you didn't make the cut in anything outside your specialty. Yes, Rin was the best of her class with medical techniques and very good at illusions, but for everything else, even trying her damnedest, she just barely fell short of where she needed to be. That meant that, at fifteen, she was less skilled than Kakashi had been at thirteen. She refused to let herself resent him for that, but she did let it motivate her.

To most aspiring jounin, special jounin was seen as a sidestep from the actual goal. Special jounin could still become proper jounin, it's just that most people who aimed for the top didn't consider the rank worth their time. Rin herself had wanted the full rank. She'd wanted it so very badly, but she knew she wasn't a prodigy with the kind of clan resources Kakashi had. So she'd settled—if she couldn't have full jounin at fifteen, then she'd reach special jounin and immediately work towards the full rank.

Not that taking a little longer to reach it was a bad thing. Yes, Kakashi had reached jounin at thirteen—at the cost of his childhood—but she'd heard he'd been approved after the most embarrassingly mediocre evaluations possible (though he had, just barely, technically been good enough). Minato was also a prodigy, but he'd waited until eighteen. And that wait made all the difference; his performance throughout the jounin trials had been _legendary_.

(She'd still pushed herself to make the cut before her fifteenth birthday, if only to say it was a birthday present for herself. Then she'd died. She'd gone from the high of a fresh promotion, eagerly accepting her first mission as special jounin—to the Land of Marshes, her clan's ancestral homeland, to boot—to the low of having a tailed beast stuffed in her and just about dying, in the span of only two weeks.)

Obito was still grumbling. Of course Rin would reach special jounin by fifteen. In the academy, she'd been the top ninja of her entire year. As a fresh genin, she'd been teamed with the already-famous prodigy Kakashi Hatake, who was already a chunin at the time, because she came the closest to being his peer.

And then there was Obito. Deadweight, dead last Obito. Teamed with geniuses to "balance" them. (And from what he'd overheard, "balance" was code for complaints that Minato was hoarding the best and brightest graduates for himself.)

He was tired of being the worst. He stood up.

"Rin?" he asked.

"Yes?" she said, looking up at him.

"Please spar with me." He couldn't stop the pleading tone.

She thought for a moment. She was _bored_. The monster had been deathly silent the past week. If it wasn't acting up, what was the harm in stretching her muscles a little? She grinned and agreed.

* * *

They stood across from each other in one of the larger caverns. Seals etched into roots hanging from the ceiling and walls provided the only light—just barely enough to read by, if you squinted. The roots were probably parts of buried Zetsus; seals like that needed a steady source of chakra to work.

Rin coughed. "This is kind of unfair."

"Wait until you fight me to say that," Obito said indignantly.

"No," she said, "I mean I can strike to kill because I'm a medic."

Even an instantly lethal move wouldn't stay lethal, provided she healed him before his soul moved on to the Pure Land. And the medical arts were Rin's specialty, so Obito had no doubt she could.

"It's all right, boy."

They both turned to look at Madara, sitting in a chair by the wall. When had he entered?

"If you kill her you can just sacrifice one of my spare Copy Wheel Eyes and use Izanagi to bring her back," the old man said.

That was a lie. True, Izanagi was a technique—the only technique, in fact—that could turn illusion into reality. Even something as major as reversing death only cost the destruction of the Copy Wheel that cast it; it was how Madara had survived his own death at the hands of Hashirama. But it could only be used on the self. (If it could resurrect others then he'd have gladly given an eye to save his brother.)

That he had spare eyes was true, at least. As the Uchiha patriarch he'd harvested dozens of Copy Wheel Eyes from dead comrades. It was common practice in the Warring Clans Era in case a surviving comrade lost an eye. When he died, the collection would pass to Obito.

Obito was excited now. He could undo death! Paired with Rin's well-honed medical skills, they could change the world! After this spar, at least.

Rin was already planning her moves. She knew she couldn't win any battle of endurance. Obito had always had above-average chakra reserves. The plant material replacing his right half had boosted it further, plus made his chakra metabolism ridiculously high—even if he were to keep fighting when empty, he could probably keep his Copy Wheel activated, use some light techniques, and _still_ slowly refill his reserves.

She also knew there wasn't much water to work with in the cavern. Water was her affinity, and most of her strongest techniques needed lots of it. Turning her chakra into enough water to work with would probably take a quarter of her reserves. She _really_ had to beat him fast.

On the other hand, now that he was closer to being an equal, there was no harm in showing off a bit. Rin had never used illusions on Obito while sparring with him, because they were too busy trying to get him up to scratch on the basics. ("They're practice sessions, not beatdown sessions," she used to tell him.) But she trusted Obito could handle it now. He shared everything with her, and she knew what memory his Copy Wheel Eye replayed— the regular one at least. He still refused to tell her how he got his Kaleidoscope. It was a little hard, since she didn't know what it was like to see the past and present at once, but she only needed to remind him of the _feeling_ of the Copy Wheel. Drown him in exhilaration and he'd never question it.

"Start already," Madara said impatiently.

They signed the confrontation seal at each other, formally announcing the fight. Madara rolled his eyes. That was a Senju ritual, and despite the famous statue of him making the seal at Hashirama, he'd never signed the damn thing. Madara had died rejecting the Senju's "Will of Fire" nonsense, and he hated how his memorial depicted him embracing it.

Obito didn't even have time to activate his Copy Wheel Eye before Rin's right arm snapped out, throwing three brace of shuriken at his face. He instinctively raised his wooden arm as a shield. He didn't know it, but the illusion had already begun.

He winced (wood or not, it was still technically alive and a part of him—it _hurt_ ) and, Copy Eye burning, read the handsigns Rin was making across the room. Everything seemed perfectly lit with it on—the Copy Wheel never had trouble with the dark. Even more amazing, he knew what technique she was doing before she finished the second handsign.

 _Fireball technique_. Rin had already messed up. Obito grinned and made the same handsigns. He was an Uchiha and fire was in his blood. He'd started and completed the technique second, but as his fireball rocketed into hers, it consumed it and grew bigger. That was always the risk of using the same element as the enemy: if the enemy put more chakra into it, their attack could absorb the weaker and grow stronger. Wasn't Rin supposed to be the smart one?

He was waiting to see which direction she dodged—the fireball technique moved fast, but not that fast. The true art of this technique was the follow-up, the wide range of techniques you could use to control existing fire. The downside of fire was you usually had to spend chakra making it first. Water had it easy; you could make it once and keep using it. Wind and earth always got to use the stuff around them. Well, now there was a big ball of fire already made, and it'd keep burning until the chakra he put into it was consumed. Obito was itching to show what Madara had taught him.

Obito frowned as the fireball dissolved into steam.

"Forward Water Pillar!" he heard. Her words reached him just as the column of water pierced the steam and slammed into him. His red eye glimpsed her _inside_ the pillar. He didn't have time to recover before she reached her hand out. Then he was drowning with a foot of water on all sides.

"Water Art: Water Prison," she said, not that he could hear it. She'd finished the handsigns for it while still inside the water pillar.

His own pride in his fire had been used to buy her time for a one-two hit. He should probably feel flattered. Rin had never gone all-out against him before ("They're practice sessions, not beatdown sessions," she'd told him when he'd asked years ago, somehow managing to sound practical and not snide. If those words had come from Kakashi, he would've started another fight on the spot. But that was because Kakashi was a huge jerk while Rin was a friend).

Madara snorted. The girl was sub-jounin level. Hardly worth his time. It was shameful that Obito was having so much trouble with that level of opponent.

Madara wasn't fool enough to compare Obito's slaughter of 30 black-ops a month ago to the spar in front of him—fury and adrenaline were poor substitutes for skill and training. More to the point, Obito's then-new Kaleidoscope Eye was an almost-unbeatable trump card, plus he'd had Zetsu's assistance. But you'd think after five months of adjusting to his new limbs, followed by six months of rigorous training under the greatest ninja to ever live, Obito's baseline skills could handle one little sub-jounin without relying on his strongest techniques.

Obito didn't know how long he could last underwater. But it didn't matter. The water prison restrained his movements and locked in his chakra, but he didn't need to move to get out.

He tensed the kind-of muscles in his plant half, channeling chakra into them. Branches grew out from his right arm and pierced the water prison.

Rin couldn't do anything without dropping the water prison, so she let it collapse as she sliced her chakra scalpel across his branches. It was too late; even separated from him they kept growing into another Obito.

She retreated across the cavern and, even as she readied another water pillar, both Obitos attacked. They finished their handsigns and held a hand before their mouths in the traditional fire release stance. She almost relaxed, because memory told her the fireball technique was the only fire technique he was worth a damn at.

"Great Fire Destruction!"

That was not the fireball. Two streams of fire shot towards her and she knew it was _way_ beyond countering.

She body flickered across the cavern. She really, really wanted to use the body switch technique, but there was nothing to switch herself with. Every academy student at some point tried to be clever and switch themselves with a drop of water or grain of dust, only to find their switch-in needed to be both solid and least an eighth their weight. Or they tried to swap themselves with their opponent, so the enemy took the hit from their own attack, only to find their switch-in couldn't be living. Now she had to deal with the drawbacks of flickering.

She fell to the ground. The vertigo was so bad she couldn't see Obito's attack obliterate the entire quarter of the cave she'd been standing in, walls and ceiling collapsing into the freshly-made crater. She signed for water clones, too focused on avoiding Obito's follow-up to stop herself from vomiting or even avoid sinking into the several inches of water her earlier attacks had covered the floor with.

Obito saw where Rin was. He'd seen the body flicker handsigns and knew she'd be out of it for a couple minutes. He repeated his handsigns, putting in far less chakra and aiming slightly off to keep from seriously injuring her—he'd _won_ , as far as he was concerned, so there was no point in hurting her further.

Even as he brought up his hand for fire release, nine water clones appeared around her. Half of them immediately started charging at him. Great Fire Destruction was too narrow an attack to work on a group until it hit something, but he didn't want to waste the chakra he'd just built up. He signed for a different technique.

"Great Fire Annihilation!"

A huge wave of fire, half as wide as the cave and two stories tall, bore down on the water clones.

"Standing Water Pillars!" the clones shouted. The pillars wavered but didn't fall as the fire slammed into them. But the fire wave flowed around them and continued for Rin.

One of the clones near Rin shouted a warning and she felt another clone at the front body switch with her. Damn. She still couldn't fight, the vertigo so bad she couldn't think about dispelling the clone that switched her out. Fortunately, it chose to take the hit and dispel, returning its remaining chakra to her. It could've panicked and wasted the remaining half of its chakra repelling the wave a second time. The other clones left behind were presumably using half their reserves to block the wave.

In the real world, Rin continued holding Obito in the water prison. Obito was taking way too long to drown, even with the prison forcing water into his lungs. Did he even have lungs anymore? That would explain the lack of drowning. He really had grown a clone, but it had gone straight into another water prison, held by a water clone she'd made earlier.

She wished she was skilled enough with illusions to alter his perception of time. If she could do that, the short illusion she'd originally planned could distract Obito for hours of real time. Instead, she had to keep adding on to it. It helped that Obito was buying into it so deeply that he was practically a participant. He was imagining an elaborate fight with her, and she was playing along.

In the illusion, Obito hadn't lost yet. He was still fighting, now in close combat with her water clones. Each time he turned to counter them with the Copy Wheel, another one attacked his back. He could sense them behind him, but not precisely what their moves were—he was a sensor, not a Hyuuga. His clone was doing no better.

He saw where Rin was still laying, guarded by two water clones—the Copy Wheel could not be _distracted_ —but he couldn't attack, overwhelmed with fending off her clones. The Copy Wheel guided his movements to flawlessness, and even stuck in close combat Obito could've signed any technique he wanted without fumbling. But the branches that grew, spearing out from his right side to fend off the clones, could only grow as fast as he channeled chakra into them. He wasn't skilled enough to channel chakra into his right side for branches, his feet to stay on the water's surface, _and_ into his hands for a technique.

Then he saw her stand; her vertigo was gone. He also saw her smirk, and as she snapped out handsigns he realized she had him pinned. Three clones viciously attacked his left hand. She'd predicted his actions, but he had no choice. He desperately stopped the chakra in his feet and tried to sign a body switch, trying to put one of her clones in his place. She was too good and he was too slow; she'd chosen to sacrifice her clones on his spikes to get in the crucial blow, and the several inches of water now around his ankles slowed down his feet just enough that he couldn't turn fast enough to avoid the kunai slicing into his wrist.

He couldn't complete any handsigns now, much less body switch. Another Forward Water Pillar slammed into him. His Copy Wheel saw a second one hit his clone, driving them closer. Two of her clones ran into them, bursting into water, and two more closed in, hands flurrying through signs.

Rin couldn't stop grinning. Obito had shown off his wood clones to her a day ago, in between the second and third times he'd offhandedly mentioned that he was a sensor. She'd immediately grasped what made them so powerful: he didn't need handsigns for them. The plant-stuff that made up his right half simply grew out until it split off into another Obito. So unlike normal clones, wood clones were at some point part of the original's body. That meant they contained life force—enough to recover from the sort of damage that instantly dispelled normal clones. It made them almost as durable as the original. But she'd also realized their downsides, watching Obito reabsorb them when he was done practicing. He couldn't dispel them with a handsign like other clones, he needed to physically remerge with them. On top of that, the life force made them technically alive, so Obito couldn't body swap with his own clones. He lost out on one of the most common ninja tactics. (Then again, that limit went both ways, so she couldn't swap with them either. Wood clones solved one of the major downsides of chakra clones: the enemy could normally body swap with yours at any time.)

Lightning wasn't even her affinity, but she used chakra to form the current in her hand just fine. It was a simple enough technique for non-lightning affinity ninja like herself. (Her clones, on the other hand, couldn't overcome their purely water affinity. Yet. It was one reason she wasn't considered jounin-level.)

"Lightning Release: Paralyzing Current!" she shouted when she stood between the two water prisons, pressing a hand to each. This was why she'd maneuvered them together. The current coursed through the Water Prison and her prisoners' muscles seized up. It was a gamble, betting that his description comparing growing branches to "stretching a muscle" was truer than he realized. With his muscles paralyzed, he shouldn't be able to grow anymore.

Even when guessing, she was precise. The current was enough to paralyze his clone, but not dispel it.

He could only sense three Rins now. He'd thought she was being foolish when she'd divided her chakra into nine clones, leaving only a tenth of her reserves for herself, versus Obito who'd only halved his. But instead she'd been smarter than him, giving herself the option of dispelling some clones to regain reserves she needed for herself. Now Rin had eighty percent of her remaining chakra to work with. Obito had made only one clone, and with it imprisoned, he was deprived of half his reserves.

Obito was reminded, again, of the gap between them. She, the top of her class, him the bottom.

Rin, for her part, was at her limit. Not chakra-wise, but mentally. She was worn out from maintaining the illusion this long. She let it die.

The world shifted. He saw Rin grinning triumphantly, hand stretched to hold the water prison rather than pushing electricity into him. In his mind, key details from the last few minutes turned to fuzz. When he reached out his senses, he felt only one Rin clone, not two.

Oh, oh. It had all been an illusion. Even his memory of her opening fireball was fuzzy. She'd probably already signed her illusion in the couple seconds between her throwing the shuriken and him blocking them. She'd seamlessly shifted reality into illusion—he really had been hit with her water pillar, really had been trapped in her water prison, really had made a wood clone. But using his Copy Wheel, seeing and countering her fireball, all of the close combat, and getting trapped a second time had never happened. Under the illusion, he'd probably grown his wood clone straight into a waiting water prison.

Obito was stunned by all this. And for a moment, proud. _This is my teammate! Isn't she amazing?_ Then, _She really went all-out on me!_

Well, not completely all-out. She'd been nice and not poured very much chakra into her water prison. He still couldn't move or breath, but with so little chakra the water didn't suck out his body heat or neutralize his own chakra—some of the defining benefits of water-based techniques. (Okay, maybe not that nice. She'd clearly pushed water into his lungs. He didn't remember if he'd told her that he didn't need them to breathe anymore.)

He wasn't quite finished yet. Rin had gone mostly all-out for him, so why not return the favor? He turned his Kaleidoscope on. She was dead, she was alive, she was...

One step forward. Do this and you will be one step closer. Overcome this and reach for paradise.

He drained his prison with Authority, pulling the water into a void centered around his eye.

She leapt back several yards, partly to keep her hand from getting sucked in, and partly because as soon as he showed his Kaleidoscope, the monster had started roaring again. Would she lose control? But she was distracted when she never landed her jump. The ground was gone and she kept falling. An illusion.

(Obito was kind of being nice about it. Her emotions weren't being yanked around, so she could immediately grasp what she needed to do.)

"Release!" she said. Nothing changed. "Release!" she shouted, this time straining her body to put out as much chakra as possible. She felt a massive outpouring, more chakra than she'd seen even from Obito, and she grew frightened. It wasn't hers. She forced it to stop, but the waves pounding at her head grew stronger.

She was still falling. An invincible illusion, then, one strong enough to dominate a tailed beast. That was the power of the Kaleidoscope. There was nothing she could do but wait it out.

She waited for about half a minute. Now he was just being a dick. She kept waiting.

She hit the ground and, not expecting there to _be_ any ground, fell down. She snatched four kunai from her side and flung them towards where she guessed Obito was, buying time so she could stand.

She stood in the very spot she'd been jumping to—a jump that should've taken a few moments to land. This was bad. That eye made Obito better at illusions than she was.

Her kunai passed _through_ him. Was she still in an illusion? She didn't know, and worse, she had no way of finding out. If her kunai had been an illusion, she was screwed. If Obito's eye let him pass through things for real, she was screwed. The spar was as good as over; she didn't stand a chance. Illusions might be cheap, and she still had most of her chakra, but so did Obito. She couldn't outlast him, but she refused to give up until she'd tried everything. She could at least hassle Obito a little bit, if only for spite. She chose her attack and made the signs.

Obito charged towards her. He didn't recognize the technique from the signs, but Rin had made a lot of water and might still try to stall him.

"Water Art: Water Fang Bullet!" she said as she finished. A cone grew out of the water in front of her, taller than either of them and spinning like a drill. It curled sideways to stab at Obito.

Obito let the water fang pass through him. Then another. Then another. She was just making the same handsigns over and over again. Could she actually outlast Authority and stall past five minutes? He didn't think she had enough chakra for that.

Whatever, he could end this now. His clone warped behind her with Authority while she was focused on him. Rin's original water clone, forgotten from earlier, leapt out of the puddle behind his clone, arcing its hand up.

(Hiding in Water technique. He'd seen her use it during a spar with Kakashi once, hiding in a puddle that should've been too shallow to cover a toe, much less her whole body.)

That hand was glowing blue with her chakra scalpel. From the groin up, it almost sliced the wood clone in half. It would've been a lethal blow to the real Obito, and it was more than enough to destroy a wood clone.

Damn. Now the other setback of wood clones, though he didn't recall telling Rin about it. If you damaged them enough to kill them, any leftover chakra stayed in the wood rather than returning to him. He still had to absorb it physically. He'd just lost a little under half his reserves.

He could keep phasing for four more minutes, and he could tell Rin was tired enough that she wouldn't last that long. Still, turnabout was fair play, and wood release was good for more than clones. Plus, even halved, Obito still had a lot of chakra to work with. His hands flashed through the signs Madara had shown him. He wouldn't even need to stop phasing to use this.

"Wood Release: Sea of Trees Nativity!"

Obito watched her frantically dodge branches for a few moments, then solidified and, pressing his feet to a branch, reclaimed his chakra from the dead wood clone. His trees had grown into its corpse, which made reclaiming the leftovers much easier.

Madara sighed as he watched this. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Obito had formidable chakra reserves and techniques, and he understood their textbook uses just fine, but he needed strategy. He could've ended the fight in the first ten seconds by growing roots to break her feet, then using Great Fire Destruction. Her fireball would've been too far away to help her in time. Instead, he'd wasted his time play-fighting with her.

Obito lacked the brutality that all good ninja had. Even when attacking, his instincts were not to completely and utterly dominate his opponent, but simply endure and maybe get a few potshots in. It was thinking that'd probably served him well before he met Madara. He'd gotten Obito to spill his insecurities easily enough—the boy was starved for attention—and apparently he'd been a terrible ninja. But to get as far as a real ninja Obito needed to start thinking like one.

The girl certainly had it. When she'd said she could kill Obito earlier, Madara had waited to see if she had it in her. She did. That beautiful moment when she'd cut down Obito's clone was everything he wanted to see in Obito: lethal, efficient, sneaky, thinking ahead but always ready to adapt.

Rin was trying not to get caught by the trees that were growing around her, ducking and dodging as their branches and roots reached out to grab her. But she was tired. She'd spent almost all her chakra on her last attack. Her last clone had also used quite a lot of its chakra, so dispelling it returned hardly any to her. She barely had enough for a chakra scalpel—never mind, she had none now, her scalpel flickering out after cutting off a branch that had grabbed her.

She could feel more chakra—chakra that wasn't hers—welling up. It was enough to overpower all of this, to obliterate Obito so thoroughly she could never heal him. It only made her more afraid. She forced it down. No victory was worth her friend's life.

She knew he wouldn't hear shouting, but there were other ways for ninja to talk.

"I'm out," Rin's voice said in his hear. "You can stop now." It was an illusion, but one meant for communicating with allies rather than confusing enemies. Plus, it was light enough that she didn't need to dip into her now-empty reserves. She didn't have Obito's chakra metabolism, but she could manage that much, at least.

Obito stopped his trees and sensed her chakra. He swore he'd felt a massive spike in chakra a moment ago, and he'd briefly wondered if she'd lost control of the monster. But now she really was out.

His new body really was amazing. Even when she wasn't touching his trees, he could still sense her. Whatever Madara had done to him had made him a proper chakra sensor, something other ninja had to be born with. He could pick out civilians from a mile away while Rin, like most ninjas, could barely detect an active ninja within a foot of her.

He warped in front of her, barely fitting in among the packed trunks and branches, and immediately dropped his Kaleidoscope. In battle, he could focus on the present and the glorious future, but when he wasn't fighting, when he wasn't actively reaching for paradise, he felt its weight.

She was crouching, trees hemming her in on all sides. He'd pulled back the branches holding her as soon as he knew her surrender was genuine. Now he sat down so he was at eye level.

"This was really cool, Obito," Rin said, tired but sincere.

"Um," said Obito, nervously scratching the back of his neck, "Are we still friends?" He'd never won a spar before, and now that he was changed he was afraid everything else would change, too.

"Of course we're still friends," she said, and held out her hand, signing reconciliation.

He grasped her fore- and middle finger with his, completing the sign.

* * *

Minato looked at his student, standing before him in the Fire Shadow office, and didn't like what he saw. Kakashi had been doing so well until now.

A year ago, Kakashi had been putting all his energy into faking not having emotions, trying to be the ideal ninja. It was a gross misunderstanding of what being a ninja meant, which Minato blamed on Sakumo. It was one of many reasons Minato didn't like the older man very much. ( _Small wonder his wife had left him_ , Minato thought darkly.)

More recently, Kakashi faked having them, trying to be as "normal" as possible. Unfortunately, Kakashi's idea of normal seemed to be based entirely on Obito. It was almost painful to watch, not just due to his poor choice of model, but also because it was a sharp reminder of what his team had lost. Minato still saw Obito's death as his own worst failure.

Both sets of behavior were, arguably, lies. Fronts built entirely on misconceptions. But one of them isolated Kakashi from everyone, and the other had done a lot to bring him closer. Minato even thought he'd seen bits of the real Kakashi poking through, as he slowly let pieces of Obito go, filling in the gaps with himself.

Minato felt that the Kakashi before him was the realest he'd ever seen. He was _raw_ now in a way he'd never been before, not bothering to fake anything for anyone anymore. It was the rawness of trauma.

The last few weeks, he'd been irritable, snapping at Sakumo and Minato in a way he never had before, and responding to even minor slights far too aggressively. Other times he seemed completely shut down, barely responding to anyone. 

The Uchiha had pointedly refused to give any advice about Kakashi's strange new form of the Copy Wheel. It had proven extraordinarily difficult to seal, taking Kushina hours to build a seal capable of holding it back. That was an important first step—Kakashi would only ever get worse with his eye replaying Rin's death forever. The requisite counseling was another. (There was a procedure for this; Kakashi wasn't the first ninja to come back traumatized, and unfortunately, he wouldn't be the last.)

Minato's next step was not part of a procedure. He was giving his last student a very special mission. One that he hoped would be good for every party involved.

"You called, _Lord Fourth_?" Kakashi said.

There was an edge to his voice that Minato didn't like. Kakashi was in a bad mood—not that he was ever in a good mood these days. Minato chose to let it slide, rather than provoke Angry Kakashi into rearing his head.

"I have a very special mission for you, Kakashi," Minato said. He paused to see if Kakashi would say anything, then continued. "You get to be Kushina's personal guard."

" _What_?" snapped Kakashi. "I'm not a joke ninja and I don't take joke missions. Find some half-assed chunin to do it. I do _real_ work."

Ah, there it was. Angry Kakashi, nice to see you again.

"This isn't an offer. I'm ordering you to do this. And it isn't a joke. This _is_ a black ops mission, and it's S-level."

"S-level" meant that if he failed the mission, Hidden Leaf was fucked. It was supposedly a staggering responsibility, and one usually reserved for ninja far more experienced than Kakashi.

"Kushina is a living sacrifice," said Minato. "She carries the Nine-Tailed Fox, the most powerful and most dangerous of the tailed beasts. And she's one of the last known Uzumaki. She's also pregnant, and as such, can no longer defend herself with the Nine-Tails without harming our eventual child."

 _Our child_. Kakashi knew he should probably congratulate Minato, both on almost being a father and for having the self-restraint to not yell excitedly at everyone that he was, in fact, almost a father. But he wasn't in a particularly good mood at the moment.

"Not much of a Fire Shadow if you can't even get your girlfriend to marry you," Kakashi snapped instead.

Minato sighed. This was Shitty Kakashi, the still-unpleasant variation of Angry Kakashi.

"I'm from a civilian family, so if we married, I'd have to take her clan name. And that would let everyone know how important she is, including Leaf's enemies, right when she's at her most vulnerable."

That was the official reason. The unofficial reason was that formal marriage was mostly about clan politics (for ninja) and business (for rich civilians), and neither of them were really invested in that sort of thing. Eventually, they'd need a new official reason. One that didn't involve admitting to powerful clan heads that the Fire Shadow and his partner thought their traditions were bullshit.

"There've been rumors of you two dating for _years_."

"Kakashi, there's a vast difference between 'being seen dating' and officially committing your life to someone. One of those is only somewhat noteworthy, while the other is dangerously actionable knowledge to enemies."

Minato went on before Kakashi could comment.

"Also, she's ditched her guards at least five times in the last month. But she thinks of you as her little brother, so hopefully she'll just wink and ask you to tag along. Though like I said, this is still black ops. Nobody can know how vulnerable she is."

Ha! Kushina, _vulnerable_. Even unable to draw on the Nine-Tails, it would still take an S-level ninja—someone above jounin, closer to Sakumo in power and skill—to threaten her. The real reason for this assignment was that she and Minato agreed that Kakashi needed an easy mission where someone his student trusted could keep an eye on him during his recovery. If anything, Kushina would be guarding Kakashi.

"Your cover, if anyone asks, is this: Kushina Uzumaki is a jounin and eccentric clan heiress on a long-term leave of absence so she can find someone to raise a family with. She's wasting the last of her clan's money scouting for potential spouses among the very bodyguards she requests. You have been selected, due to your age, as the one person she won't hit on."

"Did you even think of _my_ reputation when you came up with that?" said Kakashi, still shitty. "People still might think I'm—"

"Kakashi," interrupted Minato using his official Fire Shadow voice. He'd refrained from using it with his own student up to this point. "You're fourteen years old and all of your most noteworthy missions are classified. You don't have a reputation. Kushina does. She might be very _forward_ , so to speak, and very odd, but her ethics are beyond question. You're ten years too young to be of interest to her."

Minato dropped his official tone.

"Also, this was her idea. She even came up with the cover story." Minato paused. "She thought it was hilarious."

Kakashi wished he could keep being angry. Instead, it was being washed out of him by anxiety. Last time he'd tried to protect a living sacrifice, he'd killed them.

He remembered Rin, oozing so much chakra he could practically see it, shouting at him to kill her. He wondered who would ever do that to Kushina. He wondered if Kushina was secretly miserable the entire time he'd known her, or if she was as chipper as she seemed. Had Rin really needed to die, or had he denied her an ultimately happy life?

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Giving the body flicker severe drawbacks is my attempt to answer why ninjas don't just constantly teleport in battle.
> 
> I'm not a fan of realism in combat, at least not for Naruto. If it's not overdramatic and ridiculous, you're not writing shonen. 
> 
> Anyways, this is the first real fight scene I've ever written, so let me know what you think!


	4. History Moves Us Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rinnegan translates to Samsara Eye. ("Samsara" itself isn't an English word. It's a religious term, referring to the cycle of life, death, and reincarnation, and all actions that take place within that cycle. The name alone should let you know that the Samsara Eye is a massive step up from any form of the Copy Wheel.)

* * *

Sparring had been nice. Unfortunately, Obito didn't have time for her anymore. She'd been very impressed with Obito's performance, but it seemed Madara wasn't. Now she'd barely seen Obito for a month.

Spiral, one of the few unique Zetsus, sprouted next to her. She still found them creepy, but she'd rather a Zetsu for company than just the monster.

"Why is Madara training Obito so much?" She'd asked the other Zetsus that, but they always just shrugged. Maybe Spiral was unique in more than one way.

"Madara sees him as his successor," it answered. "He's just making sure Obito is a worthy one."

"I wish _I_ got training," she grumbled. She knew she was whining; the only one who could train her was Madara, and she refused to spend more time with the traitor than she had to.

"Sure, why not," Spiral said. "Madara won't mind." He really wouldn't. Rin was going to die, at Obito's hands, and what she did until then barely mattered.

"Wait, I mean—"

It wrapped itself around her, ignoring her startled shout, and melted into the earth. Then it emerged in a different cavern and spat her out.

She didn't want Madara!

"Warn me before you do that!" she said, barely managing not to fall over.

She sounded irritated. Spiral was delighted with this. Humans were very interesting.

Rin didn't know where this was, but at least it wasn't with Madara. Unless Madara liked unlit rooms.

Something square and metal was pressed into her hand.

"I don't think you can see in the dark. Here's a lantern. You're from the Land of Fire, so I assume you know a fire technique?"

She scowled at Spiral, though it probably couldn't see her face—she couldn't even see herself in this room. She was a proper Hidden Leaf ninja, for sage's sake, and she resented the implication that she needed a _lantern_ to light the way.

Five hand-signs and a steady breath later, she could see. She held up the dense, bright ball of fire in her hand, looking at the walls.

"There are scrolls with many ancient techniques on the shelves. Take your pick and train to your heart's content. I'll be back in an hour," Spiral said, and promptly melted into the ground.

"Wait!"

 _Jerk_.

She lit the lantern as well (more light couldn't hurt) and paused to look at it. It was a simple candle lantern with seals etched into the metal frame to focus the light into a more useful, less diffusive form. It was very old—Rin had last seen one in a museum. It predated both electric lighting at home and the newer, more refined fire and lightning-based techniques now used in the field.

Rin was a little skeptical now that she'd find anything of value here. Madara had been isolated for so long, he still used obsolete techniques for lighting. How useful could the battle techniques here even be? For all she knew, every technique in every scroll here had been improved upon and surpassed a decade ago.

An hour later Spiral grew out of the wall. Rin wasn't there. A scroll was left open on the ground, the human's signature and bloody fingerprints printed on one section.

Spiral rolled up the scroll, then held onto it as it sank into the ground. Spiral wasn't interested in waiting for her to return. It would leave the scroll in her room, and she could return directly there. If she tried to return while Spiral carried it underground, though, she'd probably die, but that was a risk Spiral was willing for her to take.

It did find her choice of the crane contract odd. It thought she'd have gone for the more offensive techniques. Bird summons weren't really useful in underground caverns. And it wasn't like she'd ever leave these caves alive. Then again, it wasn't like she knew that.

* * *

The Land of Marshes was mostly empty now. The Village Hidden in the Marshes had been leveled over forty years ago.

The First Ninja World War ended with two new terms: _forbidden techniques_ and _genocide_.

Before the First World War, techniques were just techniques. But some were more powerful than others. There were only nine tailed beasts, and thus only nine living sacrifices to wield their awful power. Sages were even rarer—the entire continent had never seen more than five at any given time. But sacrificial techniques were common.

There was immense power in a human life. In the Warring Clans Era, that hadn't mattered much. Territories were too small and borders too fluid to sustain more than a few sacrifices a year. You never knew when a neighboring daimyo would become your new sponsor, and daimyo preferred their peasants alive and working their lands. But with the modern hidden village system, instead of fractious clans there were great nations with defined borders. A victorious invasion could be propelled by harvesting the population of every town between the border and the enemy's capital.

By the end of the First Ninja World War, the Land of Marshes had lost its hidden village and almost every civilian in its borders. To the north, its peninsula had been an ideal staging ground in the great sea between Earth Country and Lightning Country. To the south, the Land of Waterfalls lay along its western border. Earth and Lightning plotted to destroy each other while Waterfall harvested the power to repel the much greater nations it bordered.

The Nohara had been one of the better-known clans in Marsh Country, famed for their medical techniques. They had declined to join the newly-formed Hidden Marsh ninja village, preferring to heal whoever needed it. They'd never liked the mercenary system of the Warring Clans Era, and in their opinion, the relative peace within the ninja nations just made it greedier and more centralized.

 _Had been_. At first, they'd been forced into helping the very ninja invading. Then, in the war's final phase, as the great nations panicked over the loss of their Shadows and living sacrifices, the Nohara were found to be more valuable dead than alive. Rin's grandmother and great aunt were the only Nohara to survive. They'd barely escaped extermination, and fled to Hidden Leaf.

It was why Rin had been excited that her first mission as a special jounin took her to the Land of Marshes. She'd wanted to see, with her own eyes, the Noharas' homeland.

And it was why she was furious right now.

* * *

Fighting Madara was impossible. Obito had never even come close to winning in a spar.

Madara, in his prime and wearing his iconic armor, stood across from him.

"Well?" he said. "Attack."

Obito always felt small like this. It wasn't Madara's height—he was only five foot nine to Obito's five and a half—or even Madara's legend. It was the confidence. Even in the rare moments when Obito surprised him, Madara carried himself like a man already grasping victory.

It was a fake, a strange clone molded from what Madara called a "special Zetsu". The real Madara sat in a trance in the center of a seal. Mercifully, this clone didn't seem to have the Kaleidoscope, and Madara could only maintain it for a few hours. Not that it mattered. These sessions were for honing Obito's skill with the regular Copy Wheel.

Obito had barely brought his hands together to start signing when a wave of flame swept towards him. Madara flicked his iconic war fan and the flames grew stronger. Obito's Copy Wheel guided his movements, and his hands never fumbled even as he mentally switched from an offensive fire technique to a defensive earth one before finishing his first sign. But for all the grace his eye lent him, Madara was always better.

Madara appeared in front of Obito and the flames swept harmlessly by them.

"That's enough," Madara said.

Obito was stunned. In the scarce moments before the wave had reached him, Madara had turned part of the wave into a fire clone and swapped with it. Obito understood what this meant: wherever fire was, Madara could follow. He didn't even need to sign.

Fights with Madara were always short like this. Obito attempted to apply what he'd been taught, Madara utterly dominated, then he'd quiz Obito to see if he understood what he'd seen. Repeat for several hours.

"That was good," Madara said.

Obito blinked.

"It was, Lord Madara?"

"You're getting faster. You knew how to counter, and you even got an entire sign in."

One sign was worthless. Obito waited for the rest.

"I'm not doing this because I hate you."

"Yes, sir."

Madara grinned, rather like a grandfather towards a favored grandchild.

"That was as fast as _I_ can attack. That you managed to start signing at all is impressive. It's far beyond what many jounin can manage."

"Really?" Obito couldn't keep the excitement from his voice.

"However—"

Obito's face fell. Madara refrained from rolling his eyes. The boy was far too easy to read. He'd read between the lines of Obito's stories of home, and understood that before dying, Obito had covered his insecurities with obnoxious bravado. Dying seemed to have completely stripped him of that cover, crushing any illusions he'd tried to keep about himself, but persistent bravado would've been preferable to how _open_ he was now.

Still, what on earth had his clan done to him? In Madara's day, there'd been no room for petty clan politics. Every Uchiha was raised to survive and fight, regardless of someone's parents offending a clan elder—which was probably what had happened. The boy only knew his mother's name. If his parents were dead, and Obito was left neglected, it was because the clan had wanted them dead, and thought nothing of wasting a potential warrior. Obito's upbringing was the sort of behavior Madara expected from pettier, weaker clans, not the great Uchiha. His greatest fears were confirmed: joining the Senju and forming Hidden Leaf had softened the Uchiha greatly.

"Another year or two of practice, and you'll have reached your physical speed limit. To get faster, you need to use less handsigns."

"I can do that, sir?"

"Yes. You're skilled enough with the Copy Wheel now. Basic techniques, like what I just did, should never need handsigns. More advanced techniques should still only need the last sign."

Obito hadn't known ninjas could do that until this very fight. Sure, he'd heard that ninja who practiced a particular technique a lot could whittle down even long chains of handsigns to only five or sometimes even three, but only one, like what he'd just seen Madara do for Great Fire Annihilation?

Madara merged into the earth, just like a Zetsu. Across the room, the real, old Madara groaned as a Zetsu helped him stand.

"That's enough for today," he said, slowly walking to his throne. "I'll show you how abbreviated signing works tomorrow."

Madara was always tired after using a Zetsu clone. Obito found this surreal. The contrast between the indomitable younger Madara and the somewhat vulnerable elderly one was always weird.

* * *

Rin arrived in time to see Madara sit on his throne. Obito had already left.

"Madara," she said, not caring for the "Lord" Obito often used with his name. "You _stole_ this scroll."

She thrust her scroll into his face. He recognized the Nohara clan symbol on it, and he dismissed it. She was in his personal space, a very dangerous place to be.

"I didn't steal it. I found it. Should I have left it to rot?" he asked.

"This is the Nohara clan symbol. You should've brought it back. You had to have heard that some Nohara survived," the girl said.

"You expect the most hated man in Hidden Leaf history to stroll in and return a random scroll?"

She looked even more furious.

"So you admit you knew what the right thing to do was, but you _didn't do it_. The Nohara were famed for the crane contract. The Crane Sage gave it to my clan nearly 2,000 years ago. How would you like it if someone stole the Uchiha's summon contract from you and never gave it back?"

Madara sighed. He hadn't talked with someone so damned righteous since Hashirama. It was very tiresome, and he was already tired from making a Zetsu clone.

(The Uchiha also never had an iconic summons. His clan had always just taken whatever summons contract caught their eyes, and had destroyed more than a few weaker clans just to gain such things. He didn't say this to spare himself her further obnoxiousness.)

"It's not just some scroll," she continued. "This is part of our history, and you kept it for yourself. My grandmother hid these scrolls herself. When she came back after the war, they were _gone_."

She paused to glare at him.

"You're a sensor. If you can find Obito under a pile of rocks, then you can find a contract's owner when they're out searching for it."

Madara was very irritated now.

"I had better things to do than indulge a woman I've never heard of and her childish granddaughter."

He stood up. Even at 99 years old, he was imposing.

"Little girl, understand this," he said. "You're only here instead of destroying Hidden Leaf right now because I find you tolerable enough. If you don't drop this, immediately, I'll throw you out. You will walk the thousand miles to Hidden Leaf. And you will pray you have the control to not level everything in between."

She could hear the ocean in her ears, feel the sea pounding at her head, and she knew he was right. She turned and left. She hadn't visited the Three-Tails since trying it with Obito. But if she didn't want to be a threat for the rest of her life, didn't want to one day lose control and let the monster destroy everything around her, she had to confront it once again.

* * *

Rin had been introduced to six cranes so far. A fat load of help they did her. Rin planned to confront the Three-Tails again, and she was desperate for any kind of help. Too bad every one of them had refused to respond to her summons. She had no idea how summonings worked in mindscapes, but she really didn't want to face a tailed beast alone.

It was time to get desperate. Time to summon a crane she knew the name of, but had only seen from a distance. One far older and more powerful than the others, and probably pushing the limits of what she was capable of summoning.

She bit her hand to draw blood and pressed her hands to the dock. The seal spread, and when it was finished forming she called out.

"Aitenojotei!" Shouting a summons' name wasn't really necessary—just concentrating on them was enough—but she felt better saying it out loud.

This time she received a puff of smoke, and a crane towering above her. It glared down at Rin as best a crane could.

"It's been centuries since I've been called into a human's mindscape," the crane said. "And never by someone so inexperienced."

Rin was just happy it'd worked. She was also a little tired—a summoning of this caliber took a lot of chakra.

She took a moment to compose herself, then stood up, bowed, and said, "I'm sorry for inconveniencing you, Aitenojotei, but I need your help."

She paused and glanced up at him—or, she tried to. Aitenojotei, standing on the water in front of her, was over five stories tall, and glancing up while bowing just meant she saw a slightly higher part of his legs.

"I'm a living sacrifice for the Three-Tails, and I don't know how to control it," she continued.

Aitenojotei regarded the child for a moment. Far too young, especially for a proper mindscape. Becoming a living sacrifice could force one into being, but it was often damaged or unstable.

"And what do you expect me to do in here? You're much too young for me to accomplish anything. Any techniques I use would just damage you," he said. The antics of youth were so tiring these days.

"I'd appreciate emotional support," the child said.

He loomed over the girl. "You summoned me, at great risk to both of us, so you could have a wing to lean on?"

"Y-yes?" Rin said. She wasn't so sure about this anymore.

He grumbled and deflated a bit.

"Oh, very well," he said.

Rin raised her eyebrows as the crane started furiously preening. She waited a solid minute before saying anything.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"There's no natural energy here," he said, half-muffled with feathers.

"I have no idea what that means."

He paused his preening to answer her better. "We use chakra differently than humans. We don't generate our own, but draw it from nature. There isn't any here, so I'm spreading what reserves I have for protection," Aitenojotei said.

"Not to be rude, and I'm very, very grateful that you're staying, but how long will this take?" she asked.

"About an hour." He immediately continued rubbing his beak across his feathers.

Rin treasured every interaction with the cranes. They were so very important to her, to her identity, her heritage. Still, she had to force down a very frustrated sigh.

* * *

"Is there anything else I should know about the Three-Tails? Or being a living sacrifice?" Rin asked Aitenojotei. This was how she'd passed the time, sitting on the dock and peppering him with questions. Even if it made him take longer it was still better than being bored out of her mind for an hour. She'd tried napping, but he'd poked her with his beak as soon as she closed her eyes. Apparently she couldn't fall asleep in her own head without forcing him out.

This was weird.

"Well for one, unless you do something foolish like stick your hand through the seal, it can't physically attack you," he said. He was finished preening. The natural energy now coating him would deflect anything short of a physical blow from the tailed beast. Perhaps just as importantly, he felt he had a good grasp of what Rin was like, just from the questions she'd asked. He honestly doubted she'd ever put herself in danger like that. Not without good reason.

"What? But what about when it attacked me and Obito last time? Shouldn't everything else be under my control?"

"Technically, that was you attacking yourself."

"That doesn't make _any_ sense," Rin objected.

Aitenojotei sighed. Mindwalking was a very niche talent for a crane—or any of the other sacred beast clans for that matter. He hadn't had to teach anyone for centuries. "How old are you, miss?" he asked.

"Fifteen years old."

"There you go," he answered. "The Three-Tails is a 5700-year-old being of awful power. It's been stuffed inside a series of living sacrifices for much of that time. Meanwhile, you're nowhere near mature enough to handle a mindscape properly. Of course it's dominating yours."

He heard her grumbling about "not being mature enough" and declined to mention that he was more than a hundred times her age. By crane standards, she was extraordinarily young—far too young to be seeing combat—as well as concerningly short.

Rin was getting impatient now that Aitenojotei was done preening.

She stood and said, "You're finished, and I'm not putting this off any longer. I'm going to see it now."

She turned and walked towards her island. Aitenojotei awkwardly kept pace with her, his enormous legs forcing him to walk very slowly. Rin rolled her eyes and started running, fast, allowing him a more comfortable brisk stroll.

Not fast enough to keep her from talking though.

"You _can_ stop it if it attacks again, right?" she asked.

"I can protect myself easily. Protecting you is harder," he said.

"So you can't _do_ anything?" She hadn't been counting on it—she'd had no idea how useful the cranes could actually be when she'd first tried summoning them here. But she had hoped, especially after Aitenojotei seemed so knowledgeable.

If nothing else, she wouldn't be alone. Everything else was a bonus.

"The Three-Tails can attack by seizing control of your mind," he said. "And before you ask, no, it can't do that normally. Not without your permission. But manifesting in your own mindscape brings you dangerously close to its influence. Right now, the only counter is to escape, or for me to also seize control."

"You can do that?" Rin asked. She didn't like the idea.

"Can, but won't. The Three-Tails is a monster and doesn't care about you. I, however, observe many rules, and seizing control of your mind would break all of the important ones."

Well, she was just screwed either way, wasn't she?

They reached her island and the Three-Tails' prison. Rin had initially found Aitenojotei's sheer size to be encouraging, but now that she was actually standing in front of the Three-Tails again, he just looked weak. Two-fifths of his impressive height was spindly leg, and the Three-Tails was still far broader and almost three times his height. The pool it was trapped in merely brought it down to the crane's eye level.

"You're a fool through-and-through, little girl," the Three-Tails said. Its voice was controlled, only hinting at the crushing wave it could become. "You while away your days with the two most likely to kill you, then call a summons that can't even touch me."

Rin brushed off the "little girl" remark. She had more important things to talk about. She still resented it, though.

"I still have no idea what you're talking about," said Rin. "And if you had half a brain, you'd realize that screaming at me when I'm talking to my best friend won't make me listen any harder."

"I've been _trying_ to warn you whenever your life is in danger," it said.

"Well you're doing a shit job of it," Rin snapped. She guiltily glanced up at Aitenojotei, though he didn't seem to care about her wording.

"Besides, _what_ warnings?" she asked. "Roaring in my ears isn't a warning!"

The monster paused, glaring at her. After a long, silent moment, it lashed one of its tails into the cliff closest to them. Even knowing it was empty posturing, Rin still flinched back.

"You're a fool," the Three-Tails said again, this time its voice crashing down like a wave. "The Copy Wheel is a curse, and that boy and the old man have been consumed by it. They will rip the world apart to get what they want. Every moment you spend in their presence is a moment for them to decide you're in the way, or that their great vision has no place for you in it."

"What do _you_ care?" Rin said. The Three-Tails didn't like her, and she didn't like it. At all.

"If you die, it will be extraordinarily painful for me," it said. "I would rather bide my time here, for your meager human lifespan, than dissolve and reform in the Grey Land."

"Wow, I'm touched," she said. The Three-Tails didn't deserve any of her kindness, so if it didn't like sarcasm and resentment then it better promise to shut up faster.

"Besides, Obito's never hurt anyone," Rin said stubbornly. Especially before his death. Not even when he'd tried—he really had been a terrible ninja.

"They're both driven by hatred and will destroy you. Don't you feel the malice in their eyes, and around the boy's heart?"

"I already know Madara's evil. Thanks for that great insight," she said. "But Obito's my teammate. I'd trust him with my life."

The monster didn't respond to that. She doubted it even knew what friendship was.

Rin didn't realize that, this close to the monster, it had much deeper insight to her mind. The Three-Tails was always watching what she did, but only when she was standing right here could it grapple with her private thoughts.

"I have existed for far, far longer than you," it said. Its words were a river now, doing its best to drag them along and pull them under. "I know what friendship is. I've seen it destroy kingdoms. I've watched living sacrifices cut down thousands of people at a time to help a friend. I've seen humans ignore the vilest actions because the vile person who did them was a friend. Your friendship, however valuable it is to you, _will not save you_."

Rin did her best to brush aside its words. She couldn't pretend they were empty.

"Obito isn't a bad person," she insisted. "And yes, I _will_ stake my life on that."

It laughed, rumbling like a vast glacier splitting in half. "You would trust a boy, who admits to seeking an illusion for covering the whole world, to value the _real_ you more than a fake, illusory you who never disagrees with him?"

"Yes," she said, her hands balling into fists so tight it almost hurt. But those last few words carried too much weight, pulling her down. Because she doubted. Because Obito was _driven_ now in a way he never was before. Driven towards something she couldn't follow. Something she saw as horrifying and he saw as grand and profound and worth any sacrifice.

"You can't lie," the Three-Tails said. "Not here in front of me."

Its words finally pulled her under. She couldn't fight it anymore. She couldn't even look it in the eye.

"I don't know," she said softly.

All three of its tails whipped around triumphantly, gouging the cliffs around it.

"Understand, Rin," said the Three-Tails, words a less a raging river and more a quiet creek. It had _won_. "That I am not cruel. Like the sea, I merely _am_."

She didn't grasp the hypocrisy of the indifferent ocean calling her by name, when it never had before, though Aitenojotei did.

"If you don't run or attack first," it continued, "then they'll eventually kill you themselves. Madara will throw you away and Obito will replace you with an illusion. If you value yourself, and all the others they would kill, you will accept my offer. You will take my power and rend them into dust."

That was a bit much for her. She doubted Obito now, but the thought of killing him herself was still repulsive.

"Look into his eye, when his Kaleidoscope is on, and ask yourself if he really sees _you_ , or a you that doesn't exist."

Then it was silent. The Three-Tails had nothing more to say.

Rin was quiet for a moment. Then she said to the crane next to her, "I want to leave. I'm just... I'm done. With this. All of this. I need time to think."

* * *

As they walked to the end of the dock, Aitenojotei decided to not let her wallow in silence. In the very least he could distract her from the thought of being betrayed by her best friend, and killing them in turn.

"For the record, Rin dear, I'm nearly 2,000 years old. There aren't any words I haven't heard before."

She blinked up at him. "What?"

"You're allowed to say 'shit,' or any other word you want for that matter when I'm around. I've already heard them all."

Rin looked back down. Aitenojotei resigned himself to silence.

"Electricity," she said, looking up at him again.

Well, now his presence wasn't entirely pointless. "I beg your pardon?"

"The Marsh Country wasn't electrified yet when you last saw humans. It's a word you don't know."

"Clever," he said, nodding. "What's electricity?"

* * *

Rin had tried teaching Obito by telling him what he did right. Kakashi had tried teaching him by always pointing out what he did wrong. Minato was a good teacher and could do both without coddling or crushing.

But Minato's grace as a teacher and Rin's willingness to help (or even Kakashi's well-meaning efforts, however poisonous Obito had found them) couldn't compensate for the most important factor in Obito's life: he was an outcast in his own clan. Rin knew from personal experience how important clans were to success. She wouldn't have been half the ninja she was without her clan's support, and she knew the Hatake had provided Kakashi with every kind of resource and support he'd ever needed. (Well, at least for ninja stuff. Everything else—what counselors like her great aunt delicately called "human development"—was seriously neglected.)

At the time of Obito's death, his distant relative Itachi, five years his junior, was already better than Obito had ever been at the clan's signature techniques. Sure, Itachi was clearly a genius, but half of it was the incredible amount of support the kid was clearly showered with, being the clan head's child and heir.

Clan support wasn't an issue for Obito anymore. He had Madara now. Unfortunately. And that stupid Kaleidoscope, which made him great but drove him further away.

She cringed whenever she saw Obito sitting near the old man, eagerly listening to whatever Madara had to say. She hated seeing how desperate he was for Madara's approval. She hated Obito's clan for making him so lonely. And she hated herself for hating Madara, because he was the only person to ever give Obito what he wanted more than anything: recognition from his clan. Recognition from the greatest patriarch in Uchiha history, to boot.

But it'd be hypocritical if she told him to stop. She was working to reclaim her own lost heritage, after all.

* * *

Rin normally liked visiting the cranes' home. Kushiro Marsh wasn't much to look at, but it had giant cranes and everything else seemed equally big to accommodate them. It also, so she'd been told, shared the same continent with all the other summons—a special continent set aside for only sacred beasts by the Sage of Six Paths. Supposedly. True or not, it still felt very special.

This time wasn't so fun. She'd been reverse-summoned—she didn't even know you could _do_ that—by the cranes, and then left with Oujotsuru, a very young and relatively small crane whom she'd been introduced to the first time she'd visited.

If nothing else, she didn't have to think about Obito or the Three-Tails.

"Are all humans so short?" asked Oujotsuru. She was standing on the water's surface, while Rin sat on a wooden platform in the middle of the marsh.

"No, I'm not done growing yet," Rin answered. She hoped. She'd never fretted about being the shortest one on her team. Frankly, at five feet three inches, she was pretty average for someone her age. But now she was very conscious about her height, because Oujotsuru was the same age as her and already twice as tall. She knew it didn't count, because Oujotsuru was a freaking magic crane, but still. Her neck was always sore after these visits from constantly looking up.

This was made worse by Oujotsuru. She didn't ask Rin that question because she was genuinely ignorant. She was just rubbing it in. When Rin visited, Oujotsuru was no longer the shortest person in Kushiro Marsh. It was probably why she was standing on the water rather than sinking in, enjoying every inch of height she had over Rin.

Rin heard the loud splash of giant feet hitting water and the beating of huge wings. By now she could recognize the sound of a crane landing in the water. It was close to them so she turned to watch.

It was Aitenojotei.

"Her Graceful Eminence the Crown Princess has ordered your summoning, so you can explain yourself," he stated.

_What?_

"Uh, explain what, sir?" Rin was completely in the dark about this.

"A summons is a sacred bond, and one that shouldn't be taken lightly. You may not have abused it, but you did try to summon us into your mindscape with no knowledge of, or even consideration for, the consequences for _us_. Outaihitsuru in particular thinks you were awfully casual about it," answered Aitenojotei.

Rin pursed her lips. They were right, but she'd been so terrified of, you know, the freaking tailed beast in her head that she'd struck out for whatever help she could get.

"You'll support me, right? You were there. You know how bad tailed beasts are," asked Rin. "I mean, they'll listen to you, right? You're pretty important."

"You're not doing yourself any favors, making assumptions like that," said Aitenojotei. "While I enjoy a few small privileges, I have no real authority, nor any great importance."

Rin had two reasons to be embarrassed now.

Aitenojotei took no joy in lecturing, so he refrained from adding that if Rin _had_ successfully summoned Outaihitsuru, she would've passed out from chakra loss anyways. She had already been visibly tired after summoning him, and Outaihitsuru was far more powerful and thus had a higher summoning cost.

For Aitenojotei, it was a stark reminder of how alone Rin was. There weren't any summoners left among the Nohara to guide her. A human teacher would've remembered to tell Rin not to summon high-cost beings until she had enough chakra to afford them.

"She arrives," said Aitenojotei.

Rin stood and braced herself for the inevitable chewing out.

Outaihitsuru swooped in and landed with all the grace expected of the eldest princess of the cranes. Unlike Oujotsuru, who stood on the water's surface, Outaihitsuru allowed herself to sink to knee level. This shaved about twenty feet off her hundred-foot height. Her landing barely even made ripples. Rin would've been impressed if she wasn't feeling so tense.

"DISRESPECTFUL! VERY DISRESPECTFUL AND SO VERY RUDE!" Outaihitsuru proclaimed, rearing her head back like being rude was the most shocking thing Rin could do.

Rin couldn't tell if Outaihitsuru was being dramatic or if being a hundred-foot bird only made every gesture _seem_ dramatic.

"There is an _order_ to these things!" Outaihitsuru continued. "To summon a crane without being formally introduced is _extraordinarily_ rude!"

"That's it? That's what this is about?" Rin blurted out, forgetting any kind of formality. "I thought this was about something actually important!"

How _dare_ she. Outaihitsuru had not been subjected to this level of disrespect since... a few hours ago, actually. With her daughter, Oujotsuru. No wonder her descendent had taken after the girl. They were both young, very ignorant, and incredibly rude.

"The introduction serves to inform you of each crane's abilities! You should have known that the six cranes you tried summoning could not enter mindscapes, and yet you tried regardless! If you _had_ successfully summoned one of us whom was ignorant of mindscapes, both of you could have been placed in mortal peril!" declared Outaihitsuru. "SUCH FLAGRANT DISREGARD FOR PROTOCOL! WHICH EXISTS FOR A VERY GOOD REASON! I SHOULD KNOW BECAUSE I CAME UP WITH IT!"

That was actually a good point, though Rin felt Lady Outaihitsuru emphasized the wrong parts.

"I understand, madam, but when I tried summoning the wisest and most powerful crane I knew," said Rin, hoping blatant flattery would soften her up, "you didn't respond. And I feared for my life. What was I supposed to do?"

Outaihitsuru nodded her head gracefully. "You are correct that I am the wisest and most powerful crane you know—and will know for some time."

Flattery didn't work on someone who believed gratuitous acknowledgments were their birthright. Rin noted how Outaihitsuru didn't mention the failed summoning. Which confirmed what she should've already known, that the Crown Princess couldn't enter mindscapes. She probably thought learning about human minds was beneath her, a task for supposedly lesser agents like Aitenojotei.

(Rin still couldn't believe how unimportant Aitenojotei was. While Outaihitsuru might technically be bigger, she knew for a fact that Aitenojotei was much older than her. She'd been using age as a shorthand for authority among cranes. Apparently it was only a very rough guide.)

"And if you truly feared for your life, then your desperation and actions were understandable," said Outaihitsuru. She straightened to her full height, and ever so slightly puffed out her wings. Not enough to intimidate, but enough to remind that intimidation was definitely an option.

"Furthermore, in addition to wise and powerful, I AM ALSO A GRACIOUS AND MAGNANIMOUS RULER." Outaihitsuru shouted that last part to impress upon Rin just how gracious and magnanimous she was (which was indeed very gracious and very magnanimous). "You are forgiven, child."

Rin was grateful this was over with, but Lady Outaihitsuru was the third person... being... _whatever_ to call her a child today. Rin was tired of being belittled. And tired from dealing with the Three-Tails, and tired from waiting an hour for Aitenojotei to fucking preen himself, and tired from groveling to Lady Outaihitsuru, and tired of thinking about murdering her own friend. It was a long list and she was damn tired.

"Please stop calling me 'child', Lady Outaihitsuru," Rin asked. She was trying to be polite, but there was still an edge to her voice. "I'm fifteen and a special jounin. I'm not just some kid."

Outaihitsuru scrutinized her for a moment. Rin got the feeling she was deeply unimpressed.

"You are five to ten years short of full maturity, even by human standards. You are a child."

Rin was openly irritated now. In Outaihitsuru's opinion, this merely confirmed her childishness.

"And when you are before me," Outaihitsuru said, half-spreading her wings in an intimidating display, " _My_ rank is the only one that matters."

"Yes, Lady Outaihitsuru," Rin grumbled.

Her tone was still disagreeable, but such was the way of children. Outaihitsuru turned to leave.

"What about the Empress?" asked Rin, purely for spite. "Are you saying you're greater than her?"

Outaihitsuru looked over her shoulder. "That is irrelevant. You will not meet the Empress until you are ready. Which you are not. With that attitude, you never will be."

"What?!" Rin complained. "But I really wanted to meet her!" Rin had expected Outaihitsuru to ignore her question. Instead she got an answer she really didn't like.

Outaihitsuru was now facing Rin again. "A disrespectful, ill-mannered child is barely worthy of my presence, much less the Empress'," she said.

Rin looked at Aitenojotei, who'd been staying nearby, quietly foraging for food in the marsh. He, somehow, immediately knew she was looking at him. He met her pleading gaze with his indifferent one.

"She is the crown princess, while I am merely the Empress' consort. As I said, I have no authority over anything," he said. He returned to picking fish out of the water.

"Jackass," Rin mumbled.

"CURSING IS ALSO VERY DISRESPECTFUL!"

* * *

Obito had been told so many lies—about the world, about ninja, about Hidden Leaf, about the Uchiha—that well over a year into taking the boy in, Madara was still reeducating him.

"I know it's none of my business, Lord Madara," said Obito, "But is it true you stole your brother's eyes?"

Madara did mind, in fact, but he didn't let it show on his face. It was more important to counter the many lies his enemies told.

"I never stole them. That's a lie spread by fools and enemies," he said. "He _gave_ them to me."

"Why would... Why would he do that?"

"Because I was almost blind by then. The Kaleidoscope gradually destroys itself. Its own powers overwhelm the physical eye that holds it."

Madara saw the look on the boy's face.

"It shouldn't happen with you. The same power that overcame the cost of Izanagi to heal my eye, all those years ago, is now in your right half. Your own Kaleidoscope is safe."

Obito felt a little better now. He didn't think he had anyone who loved him enough to give him their eyes.

"Lord Madara, shouldn't his Kaleidoscope also have been blind? I mean, you both had it."

"Yes. But that gift was the catalyst for the final form of the Kaleidoscope: the _Eternal_ Kaleidoscope—so named because it never dies."

"What sort of catalyst?" asked Obito. This was a little vague for him. Could he get an Eternal Kaleidoscope?

"Loss and sacrifice, together," answered Madara. "The Kaleidoscope is born through loss alone. The Eternal Kaleidoscope needs more: for the receiver to lose yet more and the giver to sacrifice everything for them. Its nativity is a single act that encapsulates both in one moment."

Obito knew he'd definitely never get an Eternal Kaleidoscope.

"That's enough talk for today. Tomorrow, I'll tell you about the Samsara Eye," said Madara.

"Is that like a level past the Eternal Kaleidoscope?"

"No. It's something entirely different. A reward for winning a very old war and becoming a god."

Obito opened his mouth, but Madara cut him off.

"As I said, that's enough talk. You need to work on your abbreviated signing. We're going to practice until you can do all ten techniques, by only shortsigning, in one minute."

Obito stood up and walked to the center of the cavern. He made ten handsigns for ten techniques.

 _Great Fire Destruction_ and _Great Fire Annihilation_.

Madara had picked all of these techniques. These two focused on overwhelming power with Obito's affined element: fire.

 _Water Dragon Bullet_ and _Earth Dragon Bullet_.

Solid, workhorse attacks for Obito's secondary affinities of earth and water. He only had these affinities as a side effect of wood release, which was technically a fusion of these elements. Still, Madara insisted he be proficient with them.

 _Great Wood Dragon_.

An incredibly powerful and versatile wood release technique. Maybe too powerful. It cost a quarter of Obito's reserves, and it took a very long time to focus that much of his chakra into one technique. Obito personally thought it was overkill.

 _Earth Wall Formation_ and _Water Pillar Formation_.

Two defensive techniques that worked in a wide variety of weather and terrains.

 _Hiding in Fire_.

A stealth and ambush technique for when God's Authority was exhausted.

 _Fire Clone_ and _Body Switch_.

Two standard and highly useful ninja techniques. Obito was still impressed with how Madara used them, turning long range fire into short range combat and close combat into lethal burns.

Madara watched and wondered if it would be enough. The boy's first teacher, Minato Namikaze, was supposedly the fastest ninja alive. Meanwhile, Obito still couldn't push ten techniques out in the span of a minute. Even if he could, an average of six seconds between techniques would still be a joke. In fact, for techniques that didn't have that many signs in the first place, he was several times slower with shortsigns than full signs.

Without handsigns to shape and command his chakra, Obito had to learn a completely different approach. Not building up his chakra inside, but pouring it out into the normally weak filaments from which his Copy Wheel weaved illusions. Not directing the technique's form with hand movements, but shaping the filaments with his Copy Wheel. The final handsign was the only original sign still necessary, activating the technique so the effort didn't go to waste. It was, in theory, no different than the signless illusions his Copy Wheel made with trivial effort. In practice, Obito was learning an S-level method that even experienced Uchiha struggled with.

(There were other methods for shortsigning—Hashirama certainly never had any trouble matching Madara's speed—but Madara had no interest in them. The Uchiha weren't strong just because their bloodline enabled a few powerful techniques—it was the very foundation for every other Uchiha technique. Madara believed that straying from that foundation would be a mistake.)

With this method, Obito would eventually become faster than he ever would be using full signs. Eventually. This was only practice, and every week Obito got a little faster. Still, Madara didn't know how much longer he had. The perfect moment to strike could reveal itself next week or next year.

Would Obito be strong enough to kill the Fourth Fire Shadow when the time came?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did someone order a LARGE HAM named Outaihitsuru?
> 
> This chapter introduces the first named OCs. All of their names are "meaningful", at least by Kishimoto's own standards, but they're also Japanese names, so there's a 100% chance I've butchered the language horribly. Please, please correct me if you're more knowledgeable than I am!


	5. Moments Before Collapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Chidori_ literally means "Thousand Birds." _Kazekage_ literally means "Wind Shadow." _Rasengan_ , hilariously enough, just means "Spiraling Sphere," making it the lamest name in the series.

* * *

Kushina was always busy. She had this driving need to always be occupied with something. At any given time, she had a dozen projects going, sometimes working for days on just one, other times getting bored with each of them in barely five minutes.

It was something Kakashi was grateful for. She kept him occupied with endless petty tasks, and when he was busy, he found it harder to think about everything he didn't want to think about.

"Hey kiddo, cover the rest of the floor in paper. This seal's gonna be bigger than I thought."

"Hey Kakashi, I need some of your blood. I need to check if this'll work with other people."

"While I'm working on this, could you pour, like, as much lightning as you can into this seal? I wanna see if it can hold elemental chakra."

On and on like that, all day.

Kushina was exactly as upbeat as she seemed, too. It was actually a little annoying. When it started grating on him, he snapped at her like he snapped at everyone else these days, but she just rolled her eyes and gave him another petty D-rank task. Sometimes he deliberately messed up the job, because she was still annoying and he was being passive-aggressive. Then he got to see her angry, and if he wasn't so determined to be angry himself then he might've had the good sense to stop.

One time, in a particularly bad mood, he'd even physically lashed out at her. On that day, she'd dragged him to the closest training ground. Then she'd let him flail at her for a bit, and he'd only gotten angrier when he saw how clearly unimpressed she was by his attacks. Kushina was certainly upbeat, but not necessarily nice. Whereas Minato had been gentle enough to at least _pretend_ Kakashi had a chance during their first training session, Kushina made it clear that she had a decade of experience on him and oceans more chakra, even without drawing on the Nine-Tails. Kakashi, jounin-level or not, was basically a gnat to her. After a few minutes of him growing increasingly, utterly pissed, watching every one of his attacks be flicked away by chains she summoned out of nowhere, she declared it was "her turn," and then... well, the term "manhandled" came to mind.

(Later, she asked him why he hadn't used Thousand Birds, especially now that he had a Copy Wheel to overcome its drawbacks. He just looked away and said it wasn't ready yet. It was a lie; the technique was fine. It'd killed Rin, after all. _He_ wasn't ready yet. He was too scared of what he'd see if he uncovered Obito's Copy Wheel and charged forward, lightning in hand.)

Kushina almost reminded him of Mother. Not the being-outclassed part—Mother hadn't even been a proper chunin—but the limited patience when he was being petulant and the controlled fury when he— _no_ no no no no Mother was another thing he didn't like thinking about.

* * *

Kakashi was waiting outside the room. He was probably bored. Well, if it was Kushina, she'd be bored waiting like that.

The medic had just finished her checkup. Kushina was glad that security measures meant medics went to her, rather than the other way around. She'd always hated the hospital.

Once the medic was gone, Kushina looked up from her seat to Minato and wrinkled her nose. "Ugh. I'm never having another kid again. Just having it described to me sounds really gross."

She paused to think for a moment, then grinned. "At least our kid'll look like me."

Kushina was very physically affectionate, at least in private. But her words were always confrontational like this. When they'd first started dating, Minato knew she liked him because her tone lost its threatening edge, and because even when arguing, she kept holding his hand.

"She said they'll _probably_ look like you," said Minato.

She scoffed. "You heard her: 'clan traits almost always win out over non-clan traits.' Your family's all-civilian and I'm an Uzumaki."

"All right then, if Uzumaki traits always win, how come Tsunade doesn't have red hair?" he asked teasingly.

"Hey! Mixed-clan stuff works differently."

"Well, I still think a one percent chance of them not having red hair is pretty good odds."

She scoffed again. "You've seen Kakashi's mom—I don't think it's possible for her to look more different from her own son. And our kid is having red hair because I say so."

* * *

The door Kakashi was guarding burst open and Kushina's voice yelled in his ear, "Hey Kakashi we're going on a date so you get the rest of the day off!"

Kakashi didn't like the sound of that. He normally only left when Minato was visiting her here, in this safe house. "But you're leaving the safe house. I can't just let you go in public unprotected."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Kakashi," said Minato. "It's not like I'm Fire Shadow or anything."

"What he said," said Kushina. "Oh, and go visit your mom. I don't want my kid growing up with an uncle who doesn't talk to his own mother."

Kakashi had learned to stop objecting when she referred to him as her "little brother" and "a future uncle," despite neither term being anywhere near true (though that didn't mean he liked it). Besides, he still had plenty of other things to object to.

He opened his mouth to complain that Kushina couldn't order him to leave, because she was his charge, not the other way around. But Kushina wasn't done giving orders, so he couldn't get a word in.

"And I forbid you from standing in the rain and moping in front of your team's graves while we're out."

"Are you my older sister or my mom? It's not even raining," said Kakashi before she could cut him off again. "And I don't mope."

Kakashi arguing back was unexpected, but Kushina felt it was a sign of the progress he'd been making. He didn't even sound angry.

"I'm whatever gets you to listen to me," she said. Kakashi wasn't sure why she sounded so triumphant. She hadn't even accomplished anything.

"Kakashi, as—ahem—the Fourth Fire Shadow," Minato declared. Kakashi tensed. "I hereby order: what she said."

* * *

Mikoto Uchiha sat down next to her husband, slumping onto him. They both slid down until she was fully on top of him, and he had to adjust his arms to keep holding his book up.

"It's been a while since we've been on a date," said Mikoto.

"I didn't know married people went on dates," Fugaku said.

"Well, they should," she said. "As the head of this household, I decree they must. Today."

"I didn't know the head of a household could order the head of the entire clan."

"In this household they can."

He grinned. "Well, I suppose you're right."

* * *

Kajuen had heard that her son had started being late to things. She was intrigued, since Sakumo was never late to anything, and when she'd last spoken with her son, Kakashi had been obsessed with emulating him.

There was only so much she could glean from mission reports. She knew her son had changed, but it was only thanks to the Fourth Fire Shadow and Kakashi's former teacher, Minato, that she knew _how_ her son had changed.

Minato made this new habit sound charming. Kajuen found herself annoyed, though. Her (very late) lunch break was almost up, and Kakashi was a no-show. Annoyed, but also hopeful that he wasn't completely blowing her off. Minato _had_ said he'd ordered Kakashi to visit.

Kakashi was late, yes. He was going to be even later because of the sheer number of black ops arrayed around Kajuen, who was waiting on the roof of the central admin building. He wasn't afraid, but seeing so many made him cautious. Also, it was an excuse to stall.

But he _had_ been ordered to visit her. He leapt down to her roof.

"Hello mother."

Kajuen snapped her head towards him so fast she almost got whiplash. She smiled, but it was a forced smile. He looked so much like Sakumo, it was painful. He was like a living reminder of the most painful time in her life.

He saw the pain in her eyes and he turned to leave. "Uh, this looks like a bad time. Why don't we try this again later?"

"You are _staying_ ," she said, her voice firmly blocking any argument. He hadn't heard that tone since he was eight, shortly before she left.

"Come closer. Let me look at you." When he did, she reached her hand out to his face.

"Not the mask, Mom. You know that's my thing."

She dropped her hand and scowled at him, though he saw the pain had left her eyes now.

"I was hoping you'd grow out of it."

Up close, he was reminded of how tall Mother was. Father was a little over six feet, and Mother was a little under it. He'd probably grow tall like both of them, but right now he was fourteen and still much shorter than either.

He was also reminded of how little he looked like her. People made endless comments about how Kakashi looked like a miniature Sakumo, but they were always shocked when they found out who his mother was. Clan traits tended to overpower civilian traits, to the point that it was almost impossible to breed ninja traits _out_ of a family.

Kajuen's ancestors had, at some point, emigrated from the Land of Lightning to Fire Country, though that was so many damn centuries ago nobody even knew which part of Lightning they were from. Her family's presence in Fire actually predated the Hatake's, who were latecomers from the Land of Rain, only joining Hidden Leaf in the middle of the First World War. Sakumo's parents were immigrants, but Kajuen, with her dark brown skin and tightly-curled black hair, was the one who got constantly asked where she was from.

But that wasn't the reason she'd left Sakumo.

She peered closer at Kakashi. He had her eyes (well, one of them, at least). Kakashi was _not_ his father, however he looked like it. From what Minato had said, her son had chosen a different path. One that didn't involve being an unfeeling asshole.

"Did you know I'm proud of you, Kakashi?" she said quietly.

He was stunned. "You are?" He hadn't done anything prideworthy. Half his team was dead because of him.

Mother reached out to him again, not for his mask this time but to cradle his face in her hands.

"Yes. Because from what I've heard, you finally want to be _more_ than just a ninja. Since you got that eye, you've tried so hard to human."

(He still wasn't any good at it, mind you. From what Kajuen had heard, Kakashi was being kind an of idiot about it.)

He didn't know what to say to that. Father had said he was proud of him many times, but always for being a great ninja. After Obito had died, that same praise felt alienating. _Is that all I am to you?_

And here was Mother, praising him, and it somehow felt more precious than a hundred compliments about being a good ninja.

He didn't know what to say, so he just stepped closer and hugged Mother as hard as he could.

He was a jounin, so that was very hard indeed.

"Kakashi," wheezed Kajuen, "Lemme breathe." Minato said he'd been doing much better. Kajuen was still shocked that Kakashi chose to come this close at all. This was more than she'd been hoping for from her son.

"Oh, sorry," he said, pulling back. She liked breathing, but still missed the contact. She hadn't held her son like that for more than six years.

"Mother?" Kakashi asked. He wanted to know but wasn't sure if it was right to ask. "Why did you leave Father?"

He saw the look on her face. Fuck. He'd ruined the moment. He squashed down the thought that he failed at everything important, even when he didn't realize what was important in the first place. This had been a precious moment, and he'd killed it before even realizing how much he'd been treasuring it.

Kajuen had been dreading this. (Kakashi really did have awful timing. Hopefully being around Kushina more would give him better instincts for these things. On second thought, probably not. Kushina was almost as bad as he was, she was just more exuberant and willing to power through any awkwardness.)

She knew he deserved an answer. It had been an intensely personal choice, leaving Sakumo. But she'd been forced to leave Kakashi behind, too, and she couldn't pretend her choice didn't affect him.

Forced, because Kajuen was from a civilian family, while the Hatake were a ninja clan. When she'd married, everything of hers was subsumed into the Hatake. When she left, the clan kept everything. There was a reason divorce between clan and non-clan ninjas was rare, and it had very little to do with successful and happy marriages.

"Never mind. I'll—"

"Because I asked Sakumo if he'd kill me if the Fire Shadow ordered him to," she answered. "And he said yes."

It was more complicated than that.

Sakumo believed in principles. He set the terms for everything—terms that reflected his ideals, of what a person, a ninja, a clan head, a father, a husband should be. Kajuen had bent again and again to accommodate the unbending man who was supposed to be her husband, her partner, and one day found she couldn't bend anymore. So she'd asked him what, exactly, she meant to him.

She'd asked the harshest possible question and he'd given the worst possible answer.

Sakumo was a principled man. He'd worked and worked to embody his own ideals, to never compromise his integrity and his principles. And in doing so, he'd compromised everyone else around him.

Uncompromising men deserve no pity. It was something she'd told Minato, just after leaving the Hatake. It'd been a hard-earned realization, that Sakumo wasn't worth her time. It was a realization worth sharing with Kakashi's then-new teacher, to warn him from letting Kakashi emulate Sakumo too much, to keep him from deferring to Sakumo's judgment. (Minato had seemed reluctant at first to defy a ninja he respected, especially one with twenty years of seniority on him. Mercifully, he'd come around to her view.)

"Ah," said Kakashi. "Sorry."

She wanted to ask Kakashi that same question but, even after all his progress, she was still afraid of the answer.

Then he was gone.

* * *

Kushina was guiding her date through the outdoor market. It was a nice place, always interesting, but mostly it happened to be between her and her favorite restaurant. She was damn tired of cooking her own food. Kakashi couldn't cook to save his life, and seemed to exist solely on rations. (She'd wheedled her other bodyguards—there were a couple dozen at least, Kakashi was just the one she had the most contact with—to cook for her, but aside from testing existing food for poison, they refused to have anything to do with cooking.) Minato always brought take-out, but that _did not count_.

"Aren't you dancing around the subject?" prodded Kushina, still holding onto his hand even as she was plowing ahead. (If he couldn't keep up and got his arm wrenched out of his socket, then he wasn't much of a Fire Shadow.)

Minato raised an eyebrow at that. "What?" he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd.

"The fancy new technique you're working on. The one you've told everyone except me about."

"Oh, that one. It's not new. It's really just a human version of the tailed-beast ball. Though I don't have a name for it yet."

"Yes you do," she said. She looked back at him, catching him as he avoided her gaze. "And it's so lame you can't even look at me. Spit it out."

"Well," Minato said, scratching the back of his neck, embarrassed, "I was thinking of calling it 'Spiraling God of Light'."

She rolled her eyes, even though she was looking forward again and he couldn't see. It was the thought that counted. "That's _terrible_. It's almost as shit as 'Flying Thunder God.' Just call it 'Spiraling Sphere'."

"Kushina, we've been over this. There's nothing wrong with a bit of flair. Remember 'Door Smash technique'?"

"I was busting down a door. What did you expect me to call it? Great Entrance Devastator? And you're right, we _have_ been over it. And we agreed I get a say in naming any technique I helped make."

"It's based off a tailed-beast ball. The Nine-Tails makes it, not you."

"It borrows my body to make it. I get half credit," she said.

"Kushina!" someone who wasn't Minato called out. She stopped so suddenly that only Minato's years of practiced grace kept him from slamming into her.

Her hearing wasn't Inuzuka-level, but she was still a ninja. She instantly knew where the sound came from, and she saw who it was.

"Mikoto!" she responded, waving her over.

* * *

"Do you think they'll be a boy or a girl?" Mikoto gleefully asked Fugaku as they strolled through the busy market. While civilians around them raised their voices, she and her husband were Uchiha. All they needed was a simple illusion, making their voices sound clearly in each other's ears over any noise.

Mikoto was three months pregnant and getting more and more excited about having another child. Fugaku was happy because Mikoto was happy, but he wasn't quite as enthusiastic about the idea. He already had an heir in Itachi—a _prodigy_ at that, one who matched the famed Kakashi Hatake's genius by making chunin at nine years old like he had. Having a second child seemed a little superfluous.

It wasn't like he or Mikoto had spent that much time raising Itachi in the first place. After the first year of parental leave, they both went back to their ninja careers full time. That was the advantage of a clan: a vast family that ensured Itachi would be loved and cared for even when they weren't there. Fugaku pitied the poor fools with no clan, who were forced to abandon their livelihood every time they had to care for someone.

"They'll make a fine ninja either way, and an excellent deputy to Itachi," he answered.

Mikoto chuckled. "Maybe they'll be so great, Itachi will be _their_ deputy."

"To have two children with that potential would be the work of the gods," Fugaku said.

She grinned cheekily at him. "Thank you. I don't get called a god often enough."

Grinning back, Fugaku said, "I'll pray to you often, then."

Mikoto stopped in the middle of the crowd.

"Mikoto?" he asked.

"Is that _Kushina_?" she said. "I haven't seen her in ages! She disappeared months ago!"

Both of them quickly noticed the incredible number of black ops ninja strewn about—civilians and even fresh jounin wouldn't notice, but Mikoto and Fugaku were among the best.

Yes, Kushina was clearly on a date with the Fire Shadow, but still, this was excessive.

She flicked on her Copy Wheel Eyes. Even with its help, she struggled to see through the suffocatingly thick web of illusions. (There were probably a few Uchiha among the bodyguards. When Uchiha wove illusions in tandem with each other, they became breathtakingly strong.) But she managed to see what they didn't want to her to: Kushina was visibly pregnant.

"Do you see?" she asked Fugaku.

"Yes, I see. Although that doesn't explain why she's been missing for months."

Mikoto knew that it did, in fact, explain her absence. Kushina was her former teammate. Mikoto had learned years ago, when Kushina had told her how she wanted a big family of her own one day, that pregnancy weakened a living sacrifice's seal.

"Well? Let's go to her," said Mikoto.

"I don't think that—"

"Hush now, I'd be an awful friend if I didn't stop to talk," she said.

"Kushina!" Mikoto shouted. She knew a sound illusion, like what Fugaku and herself had been using, wouldn't work. Kushina's bodyguards would almost certainly intercept and block any outside illusions.

Kushina took a moment to see who'd called her, then she shouted back and waved her and Fugaku over. Even as they approached, Kushina was waving off the guards that moved to intercept them.

Kushina swept Mikoto into an awkward hug, mindful of how they were both pregnant and wishing she could give one of her usual crushing bear hugs.

"What, was one prodigy not enough for you? Going for a full squad, eh?" Kushina said teasingly.

Mikoto chuckled. "Two ninjas are not a squad," she said. "And what about you? You disappear without telling me a thing, then come back pregnant?" She leaned in closer to Kushina. "You got the order wrong," she whispered, using a sound illusion so Kushina still heard her quite voice through the market's noise. "You're supposed to elope first, _then_ have a kid."

Kushina burst out laughing. "I tried to get Minato to elope with me, but he didn't want to give up the Fire Shadow hat," she said loudly.

"Hey," Minato said, "You said yourself I look good in that hat."

Kushina went back to chatting with Mikoto. Minato then looked at Fugaku. He held his gaze for a moment, then spread his arms for a hug. Fugaku just raised an eyebrow at that, and didn't move from next to Mikoto.

He refused to indulge in showy displays of affection in public. Not even for the Fire Shadow. Clan heads did not hug. He had more dignity than that.

"Still a stick in the mud, I see," said Minato, his face never dropping that infuriatingly pleasant, approachable look.

"Hey you two, are you coming or what?" Kushina called out. They both turned and saw that their partners were walking away.

"Yeah, this is a double date now!" Mikoto said. "If you don't hurry, you two'll have to get your own table!"

Fugaku hurried after them because he wasn't sure he could share a table alone with Minato without, at some point, saying he thought the other man had stolen the position of Fire Shadow from the Uchiha clan. That wouldn't go over well. Minato followed because he liked being with most people, but Fugaku was not the best company, and going from a solo date with his partner to sitting alone with a perpetually-grumpy clan head was the worst possible downgrade.

* * *

Karura was very tired.

"Sasori?" she asked.

"Yes?" he answered and stepped closer, moving oddly yet eerily quiet in his new body.

"Do you want to hold him?"

He did, and he leaned down so she could carefully pass their newborn to him.

Sasori's vision in his puppet body was mostly unchanged. Touch, however, remained a problem. Sasori had dozens of chakra threads flitting over his new body at any given time. The feedback was an adequate replacement for touch. That was how he felt his child, so to speak. Even if he were to drop the infant, it would barely move, suspended from so many threads. Karura probably wouldn't appreciate it if he did that, though.

"Shouldn't he be crying?" Sasori asked.

She gave a tired shrug. "Depends on the baby. They all get really bad later, though."

Karura was silent for a few minutes, watching Sasori with their child.

"Are you happy, Sasori?" she asked.

He thought for a moment. "I suppose this is acceptable."

She gave him that look she used when he picked the wrong words.

"I am content. Being with you and with Gaara," he said after thinking. He remembered the name they'd settled on.

* * *

A while later, Sasori left the room. Karura was asleep and Gaara had been taken elsewhere in the hospital; he saw no reason to stay. In the hallway, he turned and... well, if he had his old body, he would've blinked, but as it was, he could pick and choose what expressions his puppet face showed. And he wasn't going to give anyone the satisfaction of knowing they'd surprised him.

Rasa was waiting in there, sitting on a bench with Karura's other children Temari and Kankuro.

"I never congratulated you," said Rasa. "I know we don't like each other, Sasori, but we're still both raising children with Karura now. We're all the same family."

"What makes you sure he's mine?" asked Sasori.

Rasa raised an eyebrow at that. It was a bit late for doubts. Sasori was probably just trying to provoke him. "Does he have bright red hair like you?"

"Yes."

"Then it's yours. Mine's duller." Only one ninja line had solid red hair like that.

"Much like your mind," said Sasori.

Rasa was certain Sasori was trying to provoke him now. He'd been trying very hard to be neutral, if not nice, with Sasori. He'd graciously accepted (so he thought) Karura's choice to love them both, and had held his mouth shut when she decided to have a child with the man least qualified to be a father in all of Hidden Sand, if you could even call him a man. Now Sasori was provoking him, as usual, and Rasa wanted so, so badly to summon his gold sand and crush him.

Sasori felt the suppressed spike in killing intent from the other man. He dismissed it as unimportant. Karura would yell at them both if either started a real fight when her children were around, and he preferred to avoid that.

Kankuro chose this moment to throw a tantrum. Something about wanting his mom.

"Kankuro," said Sasori sharply. The boy briefly quieted and looked at him. "Your mother has another child now. She's going to be occupied for some time. You'll have to wait."

It did not have the intended effect. Kankuro, apparently not satisfied with Sasori's words, started yelling again. Also stamping his feet, as if that made him more convincing.

Sasori looked at Rasa, expecting him to do something. He glanced at the small screaming person clutching the other man's pant leg.

"Please silence your child," he said.

Rasa just smirked. "Oh, you have no idea what you're in for."

The warning was somewhat lost due to the fact that Sasori could barely hear him over that child.

* * *

"Kakashi Hatake is here to see you, ma'am," said her secretary.

That was unexpected. Kajuen hadn't seen her son at all since he ran away from their last meeting. He was either being daring or Kushina had ordered him to visit her again.

Kakashi stepped into her office, and after a brief awkward silence, said "Hi, mother."

He coughed into his fist. "Do you want to have lunch? With your son?" he asked. _Your awful, awful son who spoiled our last talk and ran away?_

"Firstly," Kajuen said, "yes. I always have time for family." Well, the family that she cared about at least. "Secondly: did Kushina put you up to this?"

"Yes! Yes she did," he blurted. The actual reason was he lost a bet with Might Guy. The loser had to do the most awkward thing they could imagine. But Kakashi would die before he admitted that to his mother's face. If he was a better son he would've visited her anyway.

She sighed. "Give me a moment," she said. She had two pages of report skimming left to do.

Kakashi cast about for something to talk about. He didn't necessarily want to talk, but he knew he _should_ be talking with her more. Also, Guy would _know_ , in that freaky way he always did, if Kakashi had cheated out of fulfilling a bet by doing the bare minimum. So he had two reasons to put effort into this.

"Okay, I'm ready," Kajuen said, standing up. Kakashi instinctively moved towards the window, because it felt more natural to leave that way than spending effort opening doors and going down stairs, but she grabbed his arm and steered him towards the door. "I don't think you've met my co-workers yet. They only know you through your reports."

* * *

Kakashi's lunch was in his lap but he hadn't eaten a damn thing.

"You should visit more. I think they liked you," said Kajuen. She smirked at him as he sat next to her on the roof of a nearby building.

"I'm not sure I can go back. That lady really seemed unhappy about my mission reports," he said.

She chuckled. "To be fair, you went from submitting the most thorough, professional, timely reports to slapping down 'The snow looked nice' for a week-long mission and submitting it a month late."

"It was a very boring mission," said Kakashi. "And I really did think the snow looked nice. I even included a picture of the snowman I made."

Kajuen didn't say anything, but she'd taken a copy of that picture home with her.

She looked sideways at him, waiting for him to eat something. He was either too nervous to be hungry or he refused to take off that mask in public.

She looked away so she could signal to her black ops guard to put a heavier illusion down. She was, technically, about to discuss highly classified information. (She hadn't gone on field missions since she was a genin, but her guards had made her learn the standard silent communication hand signals anyways. It proved useful enough.)

She turned back to him.

"So, Ka—"

She blinked. His lunch was gone. As in, he'd eaten all of it while she was turned away.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"Don't trust your own mother?" she grumbled under her breath.

She cleared her throat and continued. "So, how's Kushina doing? I've read the reports, but you can only learn so much from those."

"Oh, she's doing fine," he said smoothly.

"Has the baby started kicking yet? She's six months along by now."

He stiffened and narrowed his eyes at her. "How do you know that? Kushina's condition is top secret. Even the advisory council don't know. Only a handful of people have access to the _real_ reports."

She was torn between feeling offended and amused.

"Hello, that's me. I'm one of the handful," she said. "What do you think the General Secretary _does_?"

Kakashi was silent, though it was an embarrassed rather than a threatening silence.

She sighed. "Never any love for admin," she said under her breath. "As General Secretary, I'm in charge of the Administrative Division. There is _nothing_ that happens in Leaf that I don't know about, or can't find out about just by asking."

She kept going. The flippant dismissal of the importance of admin, especially by traditional combat ninja who took everything they did for granted, never ceased to grate on her.

"Admin do all the little things that you, a field ninja, need to happen so you can do your job without thinking. Mission reports? Admin read them; we pick out the important bits, and pass them to intel. Logistics—making sure everything you need is where you need it, when you need it? Admin. Mission assignments? Controlled by admin. Payroll? Admin. Mission fees? Set and collected by admin. Ninja academy curriculum and standards? Set by us."

That was only the first part of a canned speech she used to remind oblivious field ninja how important non-combat ninja were. It was probably a bit much to dump on Kakashi all at once, so she cut it off there.

Kakashi was surprised. He'd dismissed the fancy title because she was technically only a special chunin. It was a rank populated by ninjas who couldn't pass the regular chunin exams but still needed the authority to yell at genin.

That also explained the incredible number of black ops guarding her, both today and last time he'd visited. She was a VIP.

She grinned and puffed out her chest. "In admin, we handle information so classified even the Fire Shadow doesn't know about it."

It wasn't nearly as glamorous as she was making it sound, but it was her favorite thing to tell fresh desk ninjas.

"Wait, if admin handles all the paperwork, why did Lord Third always complain about having to do it?"

She raised her eyebrows at that. "You fell for that? He made us put those on his desk so he could 'look busy'. It gave him an excuse to ignore people he didn't like."

He didn't even fill out the paperwork, either. Sometimes he'd grab a random stack of papers from somebody else's inbox, then return it in the wrong place, still not filled out. She hadn't been General Secretary then, but she'd talked with people from the Fire Shadow's office and they all found it really annoying.

"The 'boring parts', as he liked to call it, of the Fire Shadow's job are _meetings_ ," said Kajuen. "Endless, endless meetings and a lot of presentations. Anybody who's full of themselves wants a meeting with the Fire Shadow. Some of them are actually important enough to be worth his time. Outside of meetings, the Fire Shadow just doesn't have time to dive into the nitty-gritty of every decision he has to make. That's also admin's work: boiling what the Fire Shadow needs to do his job down to a three-page report and thirty minutes of explaining. The only _real_ paperwork the Fire Shadow handles are the tiny handful of papers that need his signature."

"If you're _in charge_ of all that, how do you have time for individual mission reports?" asked Kakashi.

She grinned impishly. "Just my son's."

"So you've been stalking me?" he complained.

"Well, how else am I supposed to keep up with my son's life?" she defended herself. "And for the record," she added, "that really was a cute snowman."

* * *

Rin enjoyed spending time with her cranes, but sometimes she just wanted human contact. Enough that she was willing to approach the person she may or may not one day have a life-or-death struggle with.

She spotted Obito sitting on the floor of the main cavern. Madara was elsewhere. Good.

"Hey," she said when she drew close.

"Hey, Rin," he said, perking up when he saw her.

She sat down on the ground next to him and he rolled up the scroll he'd been reading. He let the red disappear from his eye.

"How's the monster taming going?" he asked.

"Okay, I think. It doesn't just yell threats at me anymore."

"So what's a giant three-tailed turtle have to say?"

"It _really_ doesn't like you," she said.

She saw the sour look on his face and snickered.

"You know we won't stop being friends just because a talking turtle tells me to," she chided him. Well, not that she'd admit it to his face.

"I know, I know," he grumbled.

"But it is getting better. I think I'll be able to go home in a few months," she said. She looked at him pointedly. "I'd like it if you came with me."

Obito was silent for a moment. He was torn. He wasn't sure how to answer.

"I—," he said, "I'm thinking of staying here. I wanna help Madara make the Eye of the Moon."

He could tell Rin wasn't happy. Why couldn't she understand?

"That's too bad. Kakashi would really want to see you," she said. It was a blunt, last-ditch effort to convince Obito.

Kakashi had been an asshole towards Obito, and Obito resented him every way he could. But he'd also yearned for something better with the other boy. Obito had wanted another friend so, so badly, and Kakashi was on the same team and therefore available. He'd craved acknowledgement and affection from Kakashi that ultimately never came. It was why he'd given his eye to Kakashi when dying—one final effort to reach out to him.

Obito never got to see that it'd worked. Kakashi was _obsessed_ with Obito. He'd started being late like Obito, making excuses like Obito, chasing silly ideas like Obito—generally doing all the things he'd once judged Obito for doing. Kakashi had devoted himself to a dead boy in a way he never had when that boy was living. (Kakashi was actually straddling the border between sweet and creepy, though Obito didn't need to know that.)

She definitely had Obito's attention now.

"He—he would?" he asked. The hopeful note in his voice was almost painful.

She nodded. "He really misses you," she said. "He visits your grave every day he can."

Above them, attached to the ceiling, was Spiral. It blended in with all the other Zetsu roots growing throughout the caves—even if Obito had thought to stretch his senses out, he wouldn't have been able to pick it out. Spiral had special duties the other Zetsu did not: it kept tabs on Obito and, now, Rin. It split in two and sent half of itself to alert Madara.

Lord Madara got what he wanted by knowing all he could about his enemies.

* * *

Kakashi visited Obito's grave every day he could. He talked to Obito like a brother—like he never had when he was alive. Kakashi didn't know how spirits worked, but he hoped it made Obito's feel better.

Now he visited Rin, too.

Talking to Rin was slightly easier. He'd killed her, yes, but he didn't feel years and years of regret towards her memory. Not like with Obito. He still asked her to forgive him every day.

Just like he did with Obito. Were they watching him, somehow? Were they disappointed?

(He was disappointed in himself.)

"Kushina's pregnant," he said to Obito. "Been pregnant for a while, actually. She gives birth in four months, I think. You know if you were still alive we'd be forced into babysitting duty for years, right? Obito, you'd probably like that. You were always good with kids."

Kakashi himself had always been awful with them. He'd pushed himself to grow up as fast as possible, and had no idea how normal children were supposed to work.

"Hey, remember that time we had to babysit the Fire Shadow's grandkid, and I tried to train her, and made her cry when she failed?" It'd been the only time a glare from Obito actually made him feel shameful.

Spiral listened quietly from among a nearby tree's roots. Its bottom half, still underground, split off and rushed back to Madara, growing from plant to plant faster than any ninja had ever run.

Kushina and the rest of Leaf were going to die in four months. Madara would almost certainly want this. At least Spiral wanted him to want that, because that was the most exciting thing it could think of.

* * *

The best plans succeed even in failure. It was a truism Madara had held to, especially after gaining the Samsara Eye and then losing everything anyways. Madara's end goal was to _become_ omnipotent, but until then he bided his time and carefully used what he could.

 _When_ to strike had always been perilous. It came down to luck and patience more than anything. Originally, he assumed his moment would come with the Third World War. Surely Hidden Leaf would send out the Nine-Tails' living sacrifice. The Zetsus could handle any companions she had easily enough. Madara himself could hypnotize her and send her off to level her own home. (True, the Kaleidoscope was the only way to directly control a tailed beast, but the Nine-Tails despised humans, and would eagerly allow its container to be hypnotized by even the weakest illusions if it meant the monster could finally destroy all it hated.) Next, direct the living sacrifice to spare a handful of Uchiha children—the overwhelming loss would awaken at least one child's Kaleidoscope. Then from the ruins rescue a young, grieving, impressionable Uchiha and raise them as his greatest agent.

With Hidden Leaf gone, the vacuum would pull in every rival village as they fought over the then-unprotected Land of Fire. The Third World War would change from revenge and foolishness to something much bigger. Every village would send its living sacrifices out—winning a quarter of the continent would be too important not to. Madara, and his agent, would take the tailed beasts. The Eye of the Moon would begin its final stages.

Madara would die and be reborn a god.

But Hidden Leaf never sent out the Nine-Tails. None of the villages, in fact, had sent out their living sacrifices. (At least, not with enough forewarning that he could act on it. There was supposedly one incident where Minato Namikaze, before he'd become Fire Shadow, had fought the Eight-Tails' living sacrifice. But Madara wasn't omniscient—yet—and he hadn't known a living sacrifice had left their village until it was too late.) At best he could send Zetsu to skulk around the edges, and to quietly eat the occasional ninja so it could absorb any intel they carried. (It was how he, in general, knew what was happening in the hidden villages.) But as he was, Madara wasn't strong enough to singlehandedly invade one of the great ninja villages to force a living sacrifice out.

His second plan had been to send Obito to attack the Eight-Tails' living sacrifice—currently the brother of Hidden Cloud's Lightning Shadow. Madara now had reliable intel on where the Eight-Tails' living sacrifice's favorite training grounds were, and it was far outside of the protective barriers of his own village. Obito would attack while the living sacrifice was traveling, flaunt his obvious Uchiha heritage, and take the Eight-Tails. Hidden Cloud would be provoked into declaring war. The Fourth Fire Shadow would have to appear—either in combat or for diplomacy. Then, Obito could strike again, killing his former teacher. The Fourth World War would begin. From the shadows, Obito and the Zetsus would nudge the war along an ever-bloodier path, until the villages had no choice but to send out their living sacrifices.

But a living sacrifice giving birth, vastly weakening the very seal holding in the tailed beast? It was so much easier. It was _perfect_.

They wouldn't dare let a living sacrifice weaken her own seal in the middle of the village. She'd give birth well outside of Hidden Leaf's many protective barriers. No matter how carefully guarded she was, Obito could easily warp in and warp her out. He could unseal the monster, use his Kaleidoscope, and set it against Hidden Leaf.

A good plan succeeded even in failure. But just as importantly, never dismiss an opportunity without reason. Madara would make sure to keep Zetsus stationed by Obito's and Rin's graves. He needed a more specific time than "in four months," and if Kakashi talked that much normally then Madara would have ample warning. If all else failed, the Zetsu were sensors, and they could tell when the Nine-Tails' living sacrifice was brought out of the village to give birth. (Though committing to such a pivotal action on such short notice was less than ideal.)

Madara would still get his revenge and his godhood. Obito would still be shown how hopeless the world is.

* * *

The spike in chakra was so massive, it yanked Rasa awake. (He'd been having a wonderful dream where he was the Fourth Wind Shadow. At least, it had been wonderful, up until Hidden Leaf's Orochimaru appeared in it and killed him.) He was instantly alert and out of bed, instinctively stretching out his senses to feel his chakra-infused gold sand sprinkled throughout the apartment—he was no sensor, but his sand was practically an extension of his body by now. He double-checked Temari and Kankuro's rooms, making sure his sand hadn't been disturbed.

It had. Though only the sand in his own room had been touched. It was enough warning to keep the shit from being scared out of him when the current, actual Wind Shadow spoke from only a few feet away.

"The One-Tail's living sacrifice just died," the Third Wind Shadow said. "You will assist me in restraining the monster while it's resealed. It's just outside the canyon."

"The living sacrifice" and not "my father".

"Kouzen, sir," Rasa said quietly, suppressing his own anxiety while he stepped closer, "are you all right?"

Kouzen brushed off his concern. He was never sure if Rasa actually cared or merely valued the political benefits of being close to the Wind Shadow enough to pretend.

"I'll mourn later," said Kouzen. (He was honestly more concerned for his mother. She'd lost her soulmate tonight, and his duties meant not being with her when she needed her family.) "Right now, we have a tailed beast to control, and a seal to prepare."

He dissolved into iron sand, streaming out the window. Rasa threw on his ninja gear and headed for the One-Tail, running on a trail of gold sand.

Kouzen's iron sand clone reformed in front a different apartment. He knocked on the door.

* * *

Gaara was a terribly colicky child. So of course, as soon as he'd finally fallen asleep, a massive spike in chakra woke Gaara up and got him crying again. It was so bad that, not for the first time, Karura considered casting an illusion for some sagedamned peace and quiet. Unfortunately, if she cast it on herself then she also wouldn't hear if her baby actually needed anything. And casting an illusion directly on an infant was generally discouraged, as it was believed it could damage their still-developing minds.

Which was why she usually let Sasori handle Gaara. Apparently he did something with his strings that alerted him whenever Gaara did something. He could also apparently shut off his hearing in his new body, which he did frequently. Sometimes even for sounds Karura herself didn't consider that loud, much to her annoyance. She'd learn to sign at him when he did this, the standard ninja methods for silent communication now seeing use in her own home.

Sasori was not particularly good with kids. He'd had little interest in Karura's first children with Rasa, only reluctantly accepting babysitting duties as their "uncle". Now he wasn't just a babysitter or reluctant uncle, but a father himself, and yet he still lacked the deft skills with babies that Karura had. His wooden body made it worse; Gaara did not respond to him as well. Sasori simply didn't feel human, or even alive, and even an infant could notice. Gaara tolerated his father, certainly, but he didn't seem to miss him like he did his mother. Still, even though he knew he wasn't Gaara's favorite, he found it tolerable enough holding him. It was a sensation he wouldn't have enjoyed in his old body. His new one was much better, and he found that adjusting his own senses made being with Gaara much more pleasant.

So it was Karura who heard a knock on the door and answered, while Sasori walked the floor with Gaara.

She opened the door and blinked. She hadn't expected to see Kouzen. Their former teacher was pretty busy being the Third Wind Shadow and he never dropped by without a serious reason.

"The One-Tail's living sacrifice is dead," said Kouzen.

"And you need my help?" she asked. Karura wasn't a sealing master and, unlike Rasa, none of her techniques could restrain a tailed beast. She wasn't sure why the Wind Shadow was asking for her specifically.

"I need Gaara to be its next living sacrifice," he answered.

"What?" Karura was stunned.

Sasori spied Kouzen standing in the door, put Gaara in their crib—crying or no, Karura would inevitably try to call him over anyways—and flicked his hearing back on as he got closer.

"Hello, teacher," greeted Sasori from behind her. Kouzen hadn't been his teacher for some time, and they barely even talked anymore. But unlike Rasa, who carefully managed his relationship with Kouzen to stay in his favor, Sasori ignored politics and titles. He continued addressing the Third Wind Shadow as he last knew him.

"Karura, Sasori." Kouzen said, acknowledging them both now. "As I said, the One-Tail's living sacrifice died tonight, and I've chosen Gaara as his successor."

"No," she said, objecting now that she was past her shock. "He's too young. Your grandfather lasted only, like, fifteen years with the One-Tail. Gaara's only five months old. You want him to die as a teenager?"

"My grandfather graciously accepted that burden when he was in his forties," Kouzen said, glaring at them as he spoke. "If anything, he was too old. My father accepted it in his twenties and lasted until this night—almost thirty years."

"And you're just working backwards from that?" countered Karura. "'The younger they are, the longer they last'? Is that your logic?"

"My logic is that they're part Uzumaki. Neither Akeyo nor Sasori are suitable hosts because of the state of their bodies. That leaves Gaara."

"Teacher," said Sasori, "You would condemn an infant to hearing voices in his head, when he can't even voice his own thoughts yet? You'd burden him with violent urges?"

The Wind Shadow snapped his withering look to Sasori now, though it didn't seem to do anything. (It had stopping working on any of his students many years ago.) "My mother has always heard 'voices in her head' without any tailed beast's help, and she is quite happy with her life, thank you."

Kouzen paused. He decided not to point out that his parents had done a fine job raising him. Karura would probably complain that they'd "raised a real asshole"—she'd said it often enough when she was still his student. (His old students were _such_ obnoxious shits.)

"I assumed you'd be more understanding, given your own oddities, Sasori," he continued.

Karura winced, even if Sasori didn't. She'd gotten far too many comments, from former friends and strangers alike, questioning Sasori's fitness as a father.

"But your grandfather's predecessor—"

"Was violent only because he was abused and treated as a living weapon rather than a person," said Kouzen, cutting Sasori off. "Unlike my grandfather and father, who never indulged its violence, because they were never left alone with it. Yes, I'm entrusting Gaara with the One-Tail. I'm also trusting you to not abandon him."

Kouzen had nothing more to say. They were either mollified or not, they were willing or not.

"These are my orders: Rasa will help me contain the One-Tail for the night. The sealing team, Lady Second, and her Honorable Twin will set up Gaara's seal. Karura, you will stand by with Gaara. Meet us inside the canyon."

* * *

"Lady Second," said Kouzen, "the living sacrifice of the One-Tail is dead. I would appreciate your assistance with sealing it into a new living sacrifice."

Chiyo cracked an eye open to look at him. Just because she'd fallen asleep didn't mean she wasn't doing anything. She was a very busy woman, even if she didn't look like it. The Wind Shadow was interrupting her fishing. It was an extravagance, but she'd earned this pond, stocked with fish taken from the few permanent rivers in the Land of Wind.

She ignored Kouzen in favor of poking her brother with her fishing rod.

"Ebizo, did you hear that?" she asked. "Even retired, we're expected to do things."

"Never any rest for the weary," Ebizo agreed, nodding his head.

After making it clear that Kouzen was not her top priority, she finally looked at him.

"Who's the next container?" she asked.

"Your great-grandchild, Gaara," he answered.

Kouzen was an awful negotiator. He was _supposed_ to avoid the truth until she arrived at the sealing site. Or at least mention Gaara in a way that didn't emphasize her relation to them.

Some people called Kouzen practical, but Chiyo felt that was inaccurate. He was simply a man who ruthlessly pursued what he saw as the most direct solution to a problem. He was not particularly wise, but he did have the immense power needed to finish what the First Wind Shadow had started—raw power that Chiyo herself had not enjoyed as the Second Wind Shadow. Puppet masters succeeded by skill, and while her skill had led Wind Country to conquer half the Eastern Continent and almost win the Second World War, it had not been enough to stop a civil war in her own village.

Chiyo had reluctantly stepped down as Second Wind Shadow and Kouzen had been appointed the Third. His appointment was supposed to have been a compromise, and his reign a brief interim for a time when the title of Wind Shadow barely meant anything. If he'd been any weaker, he would've stayed a powerless and symbolic cover for a conflict that had been tearing the nation apart. Instead, soon after his inauguration, he'd thrown his massive weight behind one side and _ground his enemies to dust_.

The First Wind Shadow, Chiyo's father, had broken the ancient clan system that'd dominated Wind Country for millennia. He'd left the clans too weak to stop unification, but he hadn't completely destroyed them. It'd been a mistake—the First was too kind and the old clans too bitter.

The Third had finished the job. During the civil war, both sides had gambled that Kouzen would waste his position on fruitless compromises even as they fought ever harder. They were wrong. Now there were no more clans. The very clans who'd enslaved Chiyo's father, and would've enslaved her, were gone. The bloodlines still existed, but there were no more elders controlling who passed on their bloodline, and with whom. Their knowledge was preserved, but no longer secreted away from rivals, instead available to all Sand ninja.

Chiyo still had her reservations about Kouzen. She hated his decision to rekindle relations with Hidden Leaf, for one—especially after what Leaf's White Fang had done to her children. But she respected Kouzen, because ultimately, he'd chosen to be just. He'd been offered to side with those who would rule with cruelty and jealousy, and had rejected them. It was a quality she held in higher regard than any amount of power.

She decided not to oppose him on this. Gaara was, technically, the most obvious candidate. Her daughter-in-law, Akeyo, was a full-blooded Uzumaki, but thanks to the White Fang, she was half puppet. Tailed-beast chakra would corrode the very threads she used to control her own body. Sasori was half Uzumaki but _all_ puppet, and literally could not physically contain a tailed beast. That left Gaara, a quarter Uzumaki. (Though tracking fractions was usually useless for mixed clan and non-clan descendants, because clan traits tended to completely overpower any non-clan heritage. Sasori and Gaara probably had all the traits and abilities of full Uzumaki.)

"Lady Second? Lady Second, I am _waiting_ for a response," he demanded.

She sighed. Kouzen was a just and straightforward man. He was also rude as hell.

"Rude as always, Lord Third. Have patience for an old lady," she said, standing slowly. "Yes, I will assist the sealing team, and seal the One-Tail into my great-grandchild."

She didn't say she liked the idea, though. Gaara was her only great-grandchild, and the last person she'd wish such a burden on.

* * *

Four months had passed, and Obito could make the Great Wood Dragon in six seconds. He could flick out any of the other attacks almost as fast as he could make their ending sign. Madara was impressed. Somewhat. He'd been hoping Obito could manage with only the regular Copy Wheel. Obito had made very little progress with shortsigning until he let the boy use his Kaleidoscope. Madara himself only needed the regular Copy Wheel to shortsign. With his Kaleidoscope on, he could skip even the last handsign. His Eternal Kaleidoscope let him use multiple techniques at once.

Obito might be ahead of his entire clan, but he was still behind Madara. No matter. Obito only needed to be fast enough to kill his teacher.

Madara cut their training short. There was no point in continuing. Obito was good enough, and tonight was the night.

"Come here, Obito."

"Yes, sir?" said Obito as he drew close.

"I've never had you recover chakra with a soldier pill, have I?"

Obito wrinkled his nose. He hated the taste of those things. "No, sir."

"Well, now's as good a time as any. This is the safest way to see if they'll even work with your new body," Madara said, holding out a pill, still wrapped.

Curiosity was not why he was ordering Obito to eat one. Madara already knew it would work. What he needed was Obito at full strength.

Obito unwrapped the pill and ate it. After about half a minute he said, "My chakra's already full. But I feel... tired?" Weird, he'd never felt tired after a soldier pill before. Was this because of his plant half?

"Hm. That's odd," said Madara. Except it wasn't, because he'd had planned this like he'd planned everything else. "Why don't you go lay down."

Obito didn't even make it to his corner of the cave. A Zetsu had to catch him as he fell to the ground.

Madara walked to the middle of the cavern, sat on the floor, bit each finger to draw blood, and pressed his hands to the ground. Ink, spelling words and drawing patterns, radiated from his hands. A seal—the same one he used to create and control the younger him that sparred with Obito. Only this time, Obito was the focus.

Madara had needed two special Zetsus for this. The special Zetsus were costly to make, and tonight they were even costlier, because he needed a true copy, not the weakened version he normally made. Whatever the special Zetsus' cost, Madara himself paid nothing. It was the job of other people to die, after all—their fate to be more valuable dead than alive.

He'd be going through a dozen human sacrifices tonight, if everything went according to plan. If things didn't, Spiral had captured plenty of spares.

The Zetsus carrying Obito laid him on the seal, completing a three-branched pinwheel with the two special Zetsus. Shuffling over, Madara leaned over his student, and let his Copy Wheel Eyes bore into Obito's mind. This was the last illusion he'd ever make—in this lifetime.

"I need you to hate, Obito," said Madara. "Like the Nine-Tailed Fox, I need you to hate the whole world."

A good plan succeeded even in failure. The curses driving Obito towards the Eye of the Moon might, somehow, fail. But Obito didn't need to want the Eye of the Moon itself. He just needed to hate the world enough. And he needed to hate himself, enough to believe that Madara's plan was his only chance at redemption.

Tonight, Madara would have his revenge. Tonight, Hidden Leaf would be destroyed. Tonight, Obito would kill his former teacher—the Fourth Fire Shadow—and his family. Tonight, Obito would carve his own eye out of Kakashi and leave his corpse to burn. Tonight, Rin would die by Obito's hand.

* * *

This was a weird dream. But it had to be a dream, because Minato and Kushina had never had a kid.

Minato was staring wide-eyed at him. Kushina sat up from the bed to look at him. There was a lot of medical-looking stuff in the room, and several medics standing close to them.

Oh, that was it. Kushina and Minato's kid had just been born!

When Obito looked down at the newborn in his arms (when had he taken it? He didn't remember that part), he felt no wonder or affection. He _seethed_ at it. He resented everything Minato had.

He resented Minato for being a shitty teacher—it'd been _Madara_ who'd made Obito great. He resented Minato for sending him out to die, for sending Rin out to die, for never sending Kakashi out to die when he was the one person on the team who deserved death. He resented Kushina for not stopping Minato. He resented the whole village for being part of a fucked up, broken system that raised children to kill then sent them out to die.

He hated this child, for daring to exist in the face of Minato's many failures. The universe was _rewarding_ Minato for being trash.

"Obito, is that you?" Minato asked, stepping towards him. Obito raised his eyes to his once-teacher.

"It's really me. I'm alive," answered Obito. "No thanks to you." Something like pain flitted across Minato's face, but Obito dismissed it. He looked down again at the infant in his arms. Then he looked back up at Minato, at the man who'd almost been a father to him, at the man who'd failed his almost-a-son and almost-a-daughter when they'd needed him most.

This wasn't fair. The world wasn't fair. Obito would have to _make_ it fair, right here and right now. He'd wrestle with the world and set it to rights with his own hands. Tonight would be the first step towards a more just world.

"I don't think you deserve this," Obito said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kouzen is not an OC. It's just that Kishimoto never gave a name for the Third Wind Shadow—you know, the one Sasori murdered and turned into a puppet in canon? So I had to pick one.
> 
> A lot of worldbuilding in this chapter. Yes, I invented the position of General Secretary, because the idea that the highest military leader in a nation personally handles oodles of paperwork makes no goddamn sense. Important people don't read or write paperwork—that's what underlings are for. I'd also like to stress that modern militaries deploy more people in support roles than they do in actual combat. And since we never see ninjas doing boring non-combat stuff, that means there are a whole lot of people whose sole job is to keep everything running.


	6. Here Is the Revenge You Never Asked For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obito resented Minato—for letting him die, for letting Rin die—but he’d never found it in himself to actually hurt his once-teacher, almost-father right back. But now Madara’s hate is pouring into him, and Obito will finally have the revenge he never asked for. And he’s doing it without a mask. Minato, Kushina, and yes, Kakashi, will all know who killed them. They’ll all die knowing they failed in every way that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Sannin_ means something like "three people". (Not necessarily "three ninjas," as the Naruto wiki insists. "Sannin" is just how you say the number three when you're specifically counting people.) I translated it as "Three Greats," because just "The Three" is kind of lame. I left _Roshomon_ untranslated, because, like the names of Shinto gods, it's a proper noun. Roshomon refers to specific, famous gates in specific cities from Japan's history.

* * *

"I don't think you deserve this," Obito said.

Minato cautiously stepped forward. This was definitely Obito, but it was a different Obito from the one he remembered. The entire right half of his face—the side that'd been crushed under a boulder—had deep scars pressed into it, rippling out from around his eye. Minato recognized the pattern in Obito's right eye, identical to the one on Kakashi's Copy Wheel before Kushina had sealed it. Obito had replaced his missing left eye with another Copy Wheel, though it had only three ordinary tomoe and not the pinwheel of his original. And he looked older. Not just physically—taller, with a deeper voice, hair now down to his shoulders (he looked eerily like Madara, whose own face was immortalized in stone). It was the way he held himself, and the harshness in his face that'd never been there before. Minato didn't know what happened to Obito, but he knew, like Kakashi, his other student had been forced to grow up in the worst possible way.

"Obito," began Minato, but he didn't know what to say after that.

Kushina didn't have this problem. "It's nice that you're still alive, Obito," she said. "Now, if you give me my baby in the next three seconds, I _won't_ kill you for getting to hold him before me."

"I told you: you don't deserve this. You don't deserve a new family when you couldn't even take care of the one you already had," Obito said. Kushina and Minato winced.

Minato felt the spike in killing intent—mercifully focused on him and not Naruto—and lunged forward. Obito practically threw the newborn at him. Then he was gone. So was Kushina.

Minato barely processed this before he realized Naruto _wasn't breathing_.

"Taji!" he snapped at the closest medic. "Naruto isn't breathing!"

As she rushed over, he noticed it—the Heart's Curse Tag. Even as she placed her glowing hands over Naruto's lungs, the tag screamed into Minato's head STOP BREATHING.

"It's a curse tag. Keep him breathing while I remove it," he ordered.

The Heart's Curse Tag was placed around the victim's heart. It was never meant to be removed without killing the victim. But Minato was a sealing master, and there were several excellent medical ninjas present, so if any group could pull it off, it'd be them. It'd just take a few minutes.

(He was afraid because that might be more time than Kushina could afford.)

Minato was initially shocked that Obito would do that to... anyone, really, much less an infant. By the time he removed the curse from Naruto, that feeling had turned to horror. The Heart's Curse Tag was a forbidden technique. A seal of that nature cost a life to make.

Then Minato was angry, three times over. Obito had attacked Kushina. Tried to kill their child. And already killed another, casting a forbidden seal like it was nothing.

* * *

Kushina was dumped on the ground and even as she stood, roots grew around her to trap her in place. Six trees, tall and unnaturally straight, grew around her. Her eyes widened. _Wood release_? How on earth had Obito gotten that? Hashirama Senju had been its last living wielder, and he was forty years in the ground.

She was afraid because wood release could subdue tailed beasts. Hashirama had used it to push the Nine-Tails into Mito Uzumaki—the Nine-Tails' living sacrifice before Kushina. She was afraid because maybe it could be used to pull it _out_.

"Obito," she cried out, "why are you doing this?!"

"It's nothing personal. You just happen to have the Nine-Tails," Obito said. A massive sealing array spread out from his hands, connecting him, Kushina, and each of the six trees around her.

"And at the same time," he continued, "it _is_ personal. You didn't stop Minato from sending me out to die. You didn't stop him when he sent Rin out to die. You didn't punish Kakashi when Minato wouldn't."

"What?" she asked, bewildered. "Minato was ordered to send you out. And Rin accepted that mission herself. Kakashi—"

"YOU HAD THE POWER TO SAVE US AND YOU DIDN'T!" he roared at her, and instead of silence afterward, a sound like thunder filled her ears, growing into the roar of the Nine-Tails.

Her seal was undone. Kushina was already tired from her labor, and now the Nine-Tails had been pulled out. She was dying.

She was even denied the satisfaction of seeing this fake Obito—she refused to believe that the hateful, violent boy in front of her was really Obito—ripped apart by the Nine-Tails. It only ceased its roaring, stared at fake-Obito for a moment, then turned and tore towards Hidden Leaf. She summoned her chains, but she was so weakened Obito easily flicked them aside.

She collapsed, exhausted. Every minute she lay there felt like a lifetime—given how little life she had left, it might as well have been—but soon she was with Minato and Naruto again, in a different safe house miles away from the one Obito first attacked them in. She'd had Minato put one of his Flying Thunder Seals on her years ago. She trusted he took his time flashing to her because he was busy saving their child.

"Is Naruto okay?" she asked. This was too well planned, fake-Obito's sealing array too complex to set if the caster was interrupted. Fake-Obito would've known to distract Minato.

"A curse was placed on them, but they're fine now," answered Minato.

("A curse was placed," not "Obito tried to murder our child." That Obito could be alive, and do such a thing, was still hard to face.)

"Minato, I'm going to die," she said. She felt surprisingly calm, considering her day had crashed from her first real moment as a mother to epically shitty in only a few minutes.

He gestured and two medics swept forward, hands already glowing to heal. "No, you're not," he said. His voice was hard and commanding, as if he was going to solve death with raw skill and the power of being Fourth Fire Shadow.

"I'm a living sacrifice and the thing I was storing was pulled out," she said, too tired to put any real force behind her words. "We both know I'm gonna die. Now let me hold my baby before that happens, dammit."

The medics helped her sit up and Minato carefully passed Naruto to her. After a few moments of silence, she spoke again.

"Fake-Obito has wood release. Probably earth and water, too, if he can do wood. And I don't think he's master-level, but the unsealing array he used on me ain't beginner stuff."

(Kushina had recognized all the parts of the seal, though its arrangement was a bit odd. It looked like the creator had a good grasp of seals, but also worked without help, and had ended up recreating older, less refined versions of many seals, and also kept far too many weird quirks that may work for them but would be opaque to others.

When she'd last seen Obito, he could barely write a bomb tag. Yet more evidence it wasn't really him.)

"Right," said Minato, nodding. "But _fake_ Obito?"

"That ain't Obito. I felt it in my gut." The way the Nine-Tails roiled inside her as soon as the boy had appeared, and the malice that clung to him like a second soul. "The _real_ Obito," she said, "that sweet, fiery Obito, lives on in Naruto." She wouldn't accept anything else. She'd loved that boy, however clumsy and obnoxious he could sometimes be. He'd been everything she wanted in her own child.

There was another long pause, as she just watched her own child in her own arms for a while. This was all the time she'd ever have with them. And she started laughing. _All this and he didn't even have her hair._

"What?" asked Minato.

"He has your hair. You were right after all," said Kushina after she could talk again.

"I guess he does," said Minato. What else could he say to his dying lover, holding the child they'd both wanted for the first and last time?

"Minato?" she said, looking up at him.

"Yes?" he asked. This was the most scared he'd ever been. His child had almost died. The love of his life was dying, and he couldn't stop it. The Nine-Tails was loose. And he was probably going to have to kill his own student. It felt like every choice he'd ever made in his life, good and bad, was crashing down on him.

"I love you. Now go save _everyone_ _else_ I love," she said. "Go save the village." She knew he'd stay with her until she passed if she let him. She refused to cost the village however many thousands of lives the Nine-Tails would take—was taking—in Minato's absence.

"I love you, too," Minato said. "More than anything."

He snapped his head to look at one of the black ops standing nearby. A fat load of help they'd been. (That wasn't fair. Obito could teleport now, somehow, and that was one hell of a leg up.)

"Sparrow," he said. She was one of the sensors assigned to Kushina. He was a passable sensor himself, and could pick out the Nine-Tails just fine, but at this distance he could only make out a rough location for Obito. He knew Sparrow's senses were stronger. "Where's Obito?"

* * *

Obito was conveniently near one of Minato's Flying Thunder God kunai. There were dozens of them scattered around Hidden Leaf.

He was waiting. He was happy to let Minato hold Kushina until she died. Obito was brutally practical, and would remove any obstacle in his way no matter the cost, but he wasn't _cruel_. (Some part of him recoiled, because he'd never thought of himself as brutal and lethal, and had never wanted to. Another part, a raw, forceful hatred and drive for vengeance, squashed the objections down.)

It didn't change anything. Minato would eventually flash to the Nine-Tails, see Obito's Kaleidoscope sigil in its eyes, and then flash to him.

And when he did, a massive wood dragon slammed its jaws together around him.

Obito was impressed. His Copy Wheel let him watch as Minato realized what was happening, threw one of his special kunai, flashed to it when it was barely two feet out, then immediately threw another kunai and flashed to it, all in the time it took for the Great Wood Dragon's jaws to close.

Minato's Flying Thunder God technique was not a crutch—not like Obito's Authority. It built on his already-incredible speed.

Still, Obito smirked. This fight would be over in two minutes. His training had brought him to this point, to this fight with Minato. He knew. Victory was his.

He threw a kunai to intercept Minato's then made the ending signs for one Earth and one Water Dragon Bullet. Intercepting another kunai was easy with his Copy Wheel, but he mostly threw it out of curiosity. It bounced dully off of Minato's, which continued soaring without changing course, Minato flashing to it in midair. Interesting.

Minato's Flying Thunder God seal was a masterpiece, accounting for even mundane things. For Minato the weapon was unnaturally light—it showed in the way he threw it—but to others it was unnaturally heavy and fast, accelerating out of Minato's hand like no ordinary projectile, and hitting with bone-shaking weight. No average weapon could intercept it.

Minato himself was impressed with Obito. Obito had tried intercepting the very kunai he'd just flashed to—easy for anyone with a Copy Wheel. What was remarkable was Obito's shortsigning, cutting techniques down to their last sign, and shifting between elements with ease and speed.

(Later, he'd find time to regret. In two years, his student had gone from embarrassingly bad to truly great. And Minato hadn't had anything to do with it. Was he a poor teacher? Was he not as good as he thought he was, and Obito needed someone else to tap the potential Minato had always believed he had?)

Minato's shortsigns were three times longer but still just as fast. Though he needed three whole signs, the same chakra control that let him make a Spiraling Sphere with one hand let his fingers move faster than Obito's. Obito was also inexperienced, picking two different elements with the same weakness.

The Lightning Dragon Bullet rocketed out from him, meeting Obito's own dragon bullets and shredding them on contact, continuing on towards the wooden dragon. If Obito had chosen fire, the lightning just would've made them bigger. Minato would've been forced to use water—not exactly his best element—or overpower it with his own fire technique. He'd rather not rely on overpowering his opponents—not in this fight. That the wooden dragon was already made when Minato arrived—waiting for sages knew how long—and was still on the attack after all that time spoke of the immense amount of chakra it contained. He couldn't afford to spend a third of his reserves countering one technique.

Lightning hit wood and fizzled out. Minato knew that'd happen. Wood fused two elements that were weak against lightning into a hybrid that wasn't. He'd only put enough chakra into that lightning dragon to counter Obito's own techniques (anything else would be a waste) and to carry one of Minato's own special kunai, burying it in the wood dragon's side.

Minato flashed to it, a Spiraling Sphere in each hand, pressing them into the wooden monster. It shrieked as two craters formed and grew into a massive hole all the way through to the other side. Minato charged up a second pair to finish the job—he may not be able to completely destroy it, but he could damage it enough to handicap its movements.

The wood was already growing back. The dragon snapped its head and tail towards him, and branches grew near him, striking out to impale. He was fast enough to finish his technique, the second set of blows breaking the dragon in half, before throwing another special kunai and flashing to it. The dragon's tail and head collided where Minato had been, merging into each other. The new, broken ends formed into a new head and tail.

That dragon was something else. Wood release was something else.

Obito was watching. Confidence aside, he wasn't dumb enough to fight Minato without observing him first. Now, he knew how fast Minato could sign and how fast he could move. Obito realized that, at most, he'd be able to harass Minato with elemental techniques, but his old teacher was too quick, even without Flying Thunder God, to ever be hit with a conventional attack. Obito would need to distract him.

Obito intercepted Minato's special kunai the only way a ninja could: by grabbing it in midair. This was normally a lethal mistake, and even as Minato flashed to Obito he wondered why his student was so foolish. (He knew Obito had seen this happen to other ninja.)

Minato slashed at Obito's eyes before he could weave an illusion, forcing him to phase out. Obito was disappointed, but he hadn't been relying on it. He was the distraction, not the attacker. Any damage dealt by Obito was just a bonus.

Minato's eyes widened slightly as his kunai passed _through_ Obito, the kunai Obito had caught falling to the ground. (He almost wished it was an illusion, that he wasn't forced to fight Obito when he'd finally surpassed his wildest hopes of potential.)

The wood dragon snapped its tail, hurling wooden spears at them. "When I'm done with you, Kakashi's next," hissed Obito, keeping Minato focused on him. (Distraction or not, it was the truth. He wanted his former teacher to die knowing he'd failed every one of his students.) As the kunai passed through him, he formed a wooden spear in his sleeve, then stabbed out as soon as he could unphase. A split second longer, a split second more engaged with the wrong enemy, and—

Minato flashed away. The brief second of fear when he'd heard Kakashi's name had distracted him, and instinct told him to get away because he had two opponents in this battle, and he'd briefly forgotten about one of them. (For all his famed brashness in combat, one of the benefits of Minato's Flying Thunder God was that he could escape from any suspected risk, rather than be forced to fight through it. It was an instinct that'd saved his life more than once.)

Obito let his dragon's spears pass through him. He'd  _almost_ caught Minato. Obito had seen fear flash in his old teacher's eyes when he'd mentioned Kakashi. A shame Minato didn't actually take the hit.

Minato stood a few yards away. Chakra was already focused in his hands for Spiraling Spheres, his body poised to strike and destroy. Would Obito take the bait, and move to him? (Was the impulsive, impatient Obito entirely gone? Had Minato completely misread how much Obito could change?)

Obito realized Great Wood Dragon wasn't fast enough. The killing blow would need to be struck by himself, though that didn't mean the dragon was useless. He warped to his dragon, then warped to Minato. Warping something that big would slow him down a bit, but he was counting on the Great Wood Dragon to cover him during the extra second when he was vulnerable, when using Authority left him unable to cast illusions or shortsign.

The dragon took the blow for him, wood chips flying through the air even as Obito finished pulling himself out of his dimension. The man was _fast_ , and the chakra sphere thing he did was powerful.

Minato reached out with another Spiraling Sphere towards Obito and _oh sages he was on fire_. Minato's entire body was burning and he flashed to safety while his skin turned to ash and flaked off.

Obito was irritated now. Casting illusions was still easier and faster for him than any offensive technique, and he knew he needed every extra bit of speed against Minato. He'd caught Minato in an illusion—an unbreakable, Kaleidoscope-powered illusion—and followed up with a real fire attack. But Minato's instincts were good enough to flash himself out of danger— _again_ —so all Obito had done was incinerate what was left of his own dragon with Great Fire Destruction. Now the Fire Shadow was outside of his sensing range—too far away for Obito to adjust the illusion to stop Minato from breaking it. It was still stronger than any non-Kaleidoscope illusion, but Minato was the Fire Shadow, and Obito couldn't count on it holding without intervention.

Fifty miles away, well outside of Obito's sensory range, Minato spiked his chakra to corrode the illusion. It was a trained response to any overpowering feeling in combat— _it might be an illusion_ , counter it counter it counter it. It broke, slowly, over what felt like hours, each spike of chakra breaking it some more, the excruciating pain and all-consuming panic of feeling his flesh char until it crumbled away from his bones, fading away. Minato was surprised, not just by the illusion's power, but by the skill behind it. Obito hadn't even signed, and the illusion itself had killed Minato's sense of time. It'd felt like his bones had been turning to charcoal for ages, even though Minato could see the sky wasn't any darker than when they'd first started fighting.

The dragon had stalled him. Not that long, but enough for Obito to attack. It wasn't like regular elemental dragon bullets. Those were _bullets_ , and while you could steer them (even make loop-the-loops with them if you were feeling fancy, which Minato sometimes did), fundamentally their job was to hit the enemy with a large amount of elemental chakra. Obito's wooden dragon could do that, obviously, but it also lasted much longer, could heal itself, and supported any tactical shifts by Obito, moving between offense and defense as necessary. He had to get rid of it. (He was too far away to sense Obito or the wood dragon. Fifty miles was well outside his sensory range. Minato didn't know if his last attack had destroyed the wood dragon, but he wasn't counting on it, or on Obito being too weak to make a replacement.)

But Minato had something on Obito now. He knew how quickly he could cast an illusion. And he had a plan.

He flashed back to the battlefield, fifty miles being no different than fifty feet or fifty inches for Flying Thunder God, and waited a brief second to bait Obito. He flashed away just as Obito warped in. Minato flashed a hundred yards, to the other side of the battlefield, and grabbed a splinter of Obito's wood dragon, then flashed fifty miles back to safety as Obito appeared again. That Obito might be standing close to the first kunai Minato picked was a possibility, but to appear that fast at the second, from that far away? Only a sensor could detect a person that precisely at that range. (He set aside the question of how the hell Obito became a sensor, a skill that was only inherited and noticeable even during a ninja's academy days.)

(He also set aside the thought that he'd only have time to ponder the question after tonight. After Kushina was dead. Now he was angry again.)

Minato was also a sensor (though not quite on a Yamanaka's level), and he'd felt Obito when his kunai passed through him. Obito's chakra signature changed when he did that, but it was still there. It felt like his chakra was far away and still right next to him at the same time. He now had a good idea of what seals to use.

Minato undid the seal on one of his special kunai. He made a new seal, pressing the wood into it, infusing a small amount of Obito's chakra into it. Then he added two seals on top of it: a seal to make it resonate with Obito himself and a seal to let Minato know when Obito's chakra changed like before. (This was the easy, dirty method of making complicated seals: just layer simpler ones on top of each other. But layering seals so they acted as one bigger seal like that was a careful process that took far too long, at least in the heat of combat. Minato's Flying Thunder God seal was a single, compact seal that contained all of the several dozen aspects he needed it to have, and he could transpose it onto anything with a single tap. It took years of studying to grasp the complexities of anything past the simplest combined seals. It was that level of skill that'd earned him respect as a sealing master.)

He'd need other seals to stop Obito. The modified kunai let him know exactly when Obito was phasing, even if Minato wasn't touching him (so to speak). He had three other seals in mind, and fortunately they could be applied quickly. Proper seal merging was only needed if they were meant to interact or modify each other. Three different seals, each doing their own thing, wouldn't need prep work.

Minato concentrated extra hard on the seals to avoid thinking about anything else. Here, away from the battlefield and the immediate actions of combat, it was easier to think about the wrong things. Like that the love of his life was probably dead by now, and he was about to kill his own student.

* * *

Obito stood there, annoyed. Minato was mocking him, apparently, flashing in and out then disappearing far outside of Obito's sensory range again.

 _Your choice, Minato_. _Take your time while the Nine-Tails destroys your village_.

Almost two minutes had passed. Half the time, Minato hadn't even been fighting, just avoiding him by flashing too far for Obito to follow. Now his estimate was—

Minato was here and Obito breathed out another Great Fire Destruction. Minato flashed sideways to another special kunai. With one hand he threw another kunai at the Great Wood Dragon, with the other he signed a Fire Dragon Bullet. Both hit the wood dragon at the same time, then a booming flash of lightning connected Minato and that kunai.

Oh. Flying _Thunder_ God. Minato hadn't even needed to sign for it. The seal did the work for him.

The lightning mixed with the fire dragon, and instead of Obito's wood dragon brushing off the poorly matched lightning element and enduring a fire dragon that was one-fourth its size, the flames consumed the whole thing.

Damn it. Fire trumped lightning, growing stronger from it. And lightning was the element Minato was best at. For him, it took less chakra and less effort to cast a lightning technique paired with a smaller fire technique than one big fire technique.

Minato was in front of him, arm snapping out to throw one of his infernal kunai. Obito let it phase through him. As soon as it came out the other side, he'd unphase and trap Minato in another illusion. He wouldn't be slowed down by warping an entire dragon this time. Minato would be incinerated by the follow up.

Minato's eyes narrowed, Spiraling Sphere ready in one hand. Obito had taken the bait. As the kunai he'd thrown passed through Obito, Minato clutched the altered kunai in his free hand. With it he could feel the small bit of Obito's chakra carried by the kunai resonating with him. Obito would unphase, counting on the fact that Minato wouldn't know when he was done phasing, even while the modified kunai let him know exactly when Obito could be hit.

Obito unphased. Kaleidoscope whirling, he cast—

A Spiraling Sphere slammed into Obito's back, grinding him into ground, grinding the ground into a crater. Minato tapped his skin one, two, three times, then he was gone.

The fight was over in two minutes.

The Nine-Tails wasn't under Obito's control anymore. Obito guessed the first tap was Minato applying an Unsealing. The second tap was probably the Flying Thunder God seal. Obito had seen Minato slap it on enemies before, so he could flash directly to them at his leisure. What was the third seal?

The third was a vortex opening up on his back, sucking him in. No no no warp away warp away! But he couldn't warp or phase, God's Authority sputtering out in the face of oblivion.

Hah. A dimensional seal to counter a dimensional technique. Applied with one tap. Obito's last thought was that both of his teachers were _amazing_.

* * *

Madara opened his eyes to see the middle of the seal he'd put Obito on. Damn. That Unsealing had undone Madara's control of Obito, too. And it'd unattached Obito's soul from the special Obito-Zetsu. All that effort to find a way to force a soul into a different body, even for just a short time, undone by a tap. (From the Uzumaki, he would've expected it. It was why he'd made certain to bind her so quickly. But he never thought she'd share such a high-level, secret Uzumaki technique with an outsider.)

Madara's control array was complicated, but it had to be. He needed to make sure Obito killed everyone Madara wanted dead, but he couldn't keep Obito hypnotized while he was halfway across the continent. He'd found a way for Obito to be in two places at once, without relying on delicate ninja clones. Obito could attack Leaf by controlling a special Obito-Zetsu, while in turn Madara controlled Obito by hypnotizing his original body.

No matter. Obito's loss to Minato was a mere inconvenience. A good plan succeeded in failure, after all. Madara could simply rebind Obito's soul to the backup Obito-Zetsu, even as the Fire Shadow thought Obito wasn't a threat anymore.

* * *

Kakashi felt the massive spike in chakra. It was so huge that he could see even total civilians noticing it. It meant the worst had happened. The seal had failed.

He had to go. He wanted to go, to show he wasn't a complete failure, that he could protect _someone_ , that he wouldn't let Kushina die like Rin or Obito.

He'd barely run a block towards the Nine-Tails when a wave of killing intent slammed into him. He staggered and stopped and forced the bile back down his throat. It was overwhelming. He tried walking forward, but he couldn't because HE WAS GOING TO DIE. He felt like an ant that'd suddenly realized the shadow falling over it was a giant's foot, and there was nothing it could do to survive; he could _feel_ the deep, deep disgust and loathing even as the boot came down.

He could barely process that every civilian had collapsed and most ninja had, too. He was one of the handful who could still stand.

A god was here. They were going to die, and it was going to take immense pleasure in killing them.

Then it was gone. It hadn't moved, but something was blocking it. _Illusion_. A hand grabbed his arm from behind, and a different killing intent radiated close to him, smaller and more human.

A voice spoke in his ear. "You're a failure in every way that matters."

The enemy had made a grievous mistake in blocking out the Nine-Tails' killing intent. It meant Kakashi wasn't paralyzed anymore; he could fight now. Kakashi snatched a kunai from his holster and stabbed backwards, into the enemy's side. He felt nothing, but pivoted and slashed out. There was a person there but the steel glided through them like air.

A person.

A person.

Obito.

He ripped the protector off his left eye. It was no illusion; Obito was real. And because he couldn't turn off the Copy Wheel or its perfect memory he saw Obito standing before him and Obito lying crushed, dying, in excruciating detail. They blended together and he wished this was a nightmare, that he didn't have to look at the teammate he'd failed and see that failure over and over again.

"You failed to protect me," Obito said. As he spoke, Kakashi backed away from him until he hit a wall. "All I ever wanted was a friend, but you let me die. Then you failed to save Rin. And tonight, you've failed Kushina and Minato."

"Obito, I'm sorry," Kakashi said. He sank to the ground.

"You _promised_ me! I thought you'd changed, I thought you finally cared. I made you promise to protect Rin, because I thought you would, but you still let her down."

This was hell and Kakashi wanted it to end. Obito was dead but still here. How did you banish an evil spirit? Especially one you deserved?

"I'm so, so sorry," said Kakashi.

"That's not good enough!" the ghost boy yelled at him. "Nothing you've _ever done_ has been good enough! Not for anything that matters!"

Kakashi stared at the ground because he couldn't bear seeing Obito anymore. Kakashi as good as gave Obito those scars.

Clarity struck, like the lightning he'd once summoned so often, like the lightning that'd murdered Rin. _He didn't deserve this eye._ It was supposed to be a gift, a reminder of what mattered most. It was undeserved, a wasted memorial.

The haunting wouldn't end until the spirit was appeased. So he dug his fingers into his own eye socket and ripped out Obito's eye, the greatest and worst gift he'd ever been given.

The ghost was waiting, judging him.

"I don't deserve this," Kakashi said, trying hard to put all the regret he felt into his voice, failing because he didn't know how. He held the eye out to him, a cursed gift being returned to a cursed spirit. "You're right. I should've been your teammate. Friend. Brother. I still wish I could be. So take it. I don't deserve any of you."

Obito took the eye. Copy Wheel turning, he saw a future: Kakashi's gut sliced open with his own White Chakra blade, his head tilted back as Obito swung the same blade at his neck. It was exactly what a failure deserved.

"The eye merely pays for your crimes against me," he said. "You still owe your life for Rin." He pressed his vision of Kakashi's own death into his mind.

The illusion overpowered Kakashi, dragging him down further and further. _This was what he deserved. This was for everything he'd ever done to Obito and everything he hadn't done for Rin_. _This was for letting everyone down in every way that mattered_. He felt the short sword pressed into his hand, and he drew it across his gut.

Obito took the sword from Kakashi. Seppuku usually needed two swords, but they'd have to make do with one. Kakashi was perhaps a little too lost in the illusion, because he was hunched over, looking at the ground and not Obito.

"Look at me, Kakashi," said Obito. "Hold your head up." He swung the sword back—

Lightning struck. The White Fang was here.

Lightning was a dog that charged and snapped at Obito, wheeling around each time it passed through him. It filled Kakashi's eye with white and his ears with thunder. He instinctively cast an illusion on himself, blocking out the blinding light and deafening sound. Then he finally looked up, like Obito had told him to, blood oozing from his eye socket and his abdomen, and watched. His eye widened as every bite from the dog, every thunderbolt branching off its body, passed harmlessly through Obito.

Really, truly a ghost.

The lightning dog dissipated, the chakra Sakumo put into it spent. In that brief moment of peace, Obito left. The rippling scars on Obito's face grew, stretching and swirling past his body—a vortex, draining him away until nothing was left. He was entirely gone just as Sakumo's own White Chakra Blade flashed out.

"Kakashi," Sakumo started, but he saw the blood pouring out of Kakashi's face and gut, grabbed his son, and flickered to a hospital.

* * *

Obito put his reclaimed eye in a jar, covered in seals and filled with a liquid long used by Uchiha for exactly this purpose. He placed it in his personal dimension and warped in front of the Nohara clan's front door.

The Nohara didn't have a proper compound, just a single, slightly dumpy apartment building with an attached, too-small courtyard. He hesitated. Had the Nohara really done anything to deserve dying? Of all people, weren't they the most victimized by current system?

But he felt angry for some reason. Yes. Because they'd tried to crush Rin's dream, because they didn't stop her from going out to die, because for all they held themselves apart from other ninjas, they were happy to let their children be ninjas and accept money for missions.

He could sense Leaf ninja heading towards him, but he wasn't worried by any of the chakras he felt. Obito signed and trees surrounded him and the apartment. He warped to the closest branch and pressed a seal into it. It spread across the rest of the trees. Sealing Tree Dome. It'd take them a while to get through that. There'd be no interruptions.

Dulled by the trees, Obito still heard four voices shout, "Four Violet Flames!" A violet box, walls wavering like fire, appeared around him and the building, cutting through his own seal.

* * *

Madara reeled back. _Another_ seal that blocked his control of Obito. This time one he'd never even heard of. It wasn't an Unsealing, because Obito's soul was still attached to the special Obito-Zetsu. Madara simply couldn't reach him through the control seal anymore.

Madara wasn't especially concerned with Obito's fate. Even if that seal blocked Obito's Authority, the boy was smart enough to use Izanagi to escape.

But he'd been so very close. A minute longer and the Nohara clan would've been dead. If all else failed and Rin survived the night, she'd never forgive Obito. The boy would spend the rest of his life hated by the only real friend he'd ever had.

A good plan succeeded even in failure. Whatever happened, Obito would be broken and alone. His only escape would be the Eye of the Moon.

Madara had one final backup should Obito fail. One last, forbidden technique of his own design.

* * *

Everything felt more real now, like it was actually happening and he wasn't just watching himself do things. His hatred stayed. It was the realest thing he'd felt all night, but it wasn't focused on the Nohara. It was towards the village itself.

He knocked on the front door. After a while, it opened. It was Rin's grandmother, Kouketsu Nohara.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Lady Nohara," he said. "It's me, Obito Uchiha. I need to talk to you about something."

She gave him a disapproving look. "Only an evil man impersonates the dead. Now leave, or—"

"I yelled at you when you tried to stop Rin from taking the chunin exam," he said.

She gave him a piercing look.

"How are you still alive?" she asked.

"I was saved, no thanks to Minato and Kakashi," Obito said. "There's something you need to understand: you're not safe here."

Kouketsu glanced past Obito, at the dome of trees and the violet walls cutting through it. She didn't seem surprised. Afraid, maybe, but not surprised. She looked back at him. "The Nohara haven't been truly safe for a long time," she said.

"Kakashi murdered Rin." It was burned into his eye.

She stared at him, stiff and barely breathing.

"He murdered her as soon as she was no longer useful to him. And I was forced to watch," he said. Was that true? It _felt_ like it was true. A few moments ago, Obito could clearly recall every detail of what drove him to hate, but now it was all a bit fuzzy. He was desperately trying to hold onto the details, because he needed Lady Nohara to understand.

"Just like Minato threw my life away, as soon as he decided I was more useful dead. And Rin was forced to watch me die," he continued.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked.

"Because you deserve better than Rin's fate. And Hidden Leaf will never let you have that. Every principle they claim to stand for is a lie. Hidden Leaf will be first in line to kill you as soon as it suits them, just like everyone else before them. They're not worthy of your loyalty. Just like they weren't worthy of mine."

Obito tried using Authority to leave, but he couldn't. Something—the violet shield around them, probably—was blocking him. Then he remembered—Madara had given him a spare Copy Wheel for a reason.

As far as Kouketsu was concerned, Obito delivered a dire warning, and then just stood there in silence.

Just stood there, that is, until she heard him whisper, "Izanagi." His left Copy Wheel faded away, paling into milky white. The air around him twisted into a spiral, centered around his right eye. Obito—if he really was Obito—drained away.

* * *

Tsunade felt the spike in chakra and started moving towards it. Kushina Uzumaki's seal was at its weakest tonight, and there was always the chance the Nine-Tails got out. She'd been on alert for this. With her strength and her healing, she was probably one of the few people who could physically handle the Nine-Tails and come out alive.

 _Probably_. But she saw it now; it was thirty-stories tall. Each lash of each tail gouged a small canyon into the mountains behind it. Vile red chakra dripped from its mouth, burning all it touched. A strange sigil burned in the monster's eyes, something she'd only heard about from her grandmother's war stories. _Someone was controlling the Nine-Tails_.

She ran past what looked like an entire regiment of ninjas, all of them with scrolls laid out and hands pressed to the ground or held out to the air. It prepared her for what was coming; she slammed into a barrier, staggered, but forced herself through and kept running. That was the sealing team. They'd acted quickly, but that was expected of ninja.

The Uzumaki were almost all gone, and with them the skill and power needed to permanently stop the Nine-Tails, but the legacy of their partnership with Hidden Leaf remained. One thousand jounin-level sealing specialists couldn't seal away the Nine-Tails, but they could dampen its power, dull its senses, and slow its movements. They couldn't repel the Nine-Tails, but they could keep it from leveling the village with a single swipe of its tail.

Now only half a block away from the monster, she signed a technique. "One-Handed Strike!" she shouted, and an enormous stone arm hammered up from the ground into the Nine-Tails.

It reared back, roared, lunged forward to bite the end of the stone arm off, then fired a quick, sharp shot of chakra at her. She dodged it like any old kunai.

A dog made of lightning slammed into the Nine-Tails, massive but still only a sixth the monster's size, thunderbolts arcing off its body into the monster. That was probably Sakumo. With the monster distracted, she ran underneath it, towards its tails. Normally, being behind the Nine-Tails and its nine very dangerous tails was a very bad idea, but again, she was probably the only one who could do this.

She grabbed one of its tails and kept running. It snapped its other eight tails around angrily, but the very tail she held blocked the worst of the blows. (It didn't block the foul chakra burning her skin while she held the tail. But she could deal with that later. It was easy enough to numb the pain in her own body.) She managed to pull it a satisfying distance before it could wheel around and spit more chakra at her.

It never fired because Jiraiya chose this moment to land Gamabunta on top of it. Her teammate barely opened his mouth when she yelled up at him.

"We're fighting the Nine-Tails, you can drama it up later!"

Jiraiya found this terribly unfair. He'd already started posing and everything. The pop-up banner was wasted on the fox, but he'd hoped Tsunade at least would appreciate it. Sakumo, the unfeeling dickbag that he was, certainly wouldn't.

"Where the hell is Orochimaru?" her voice rang out in his ear. It was a communication illusion, which meant she'd deliberately chosen the tone of voice that she knew grated on him the most. She let go of the tail and leapt up to him, landing close a mere second later, making it doubly spiteful. Maybe he'd been underestimating how much his teammates disliked the flowery introductions? They simply had no sense of flair. (Well, Orochimaru had flair, it was just the sort of flair that disturbed the hell out of others.)

"Damned if I know," he answered. But Orochimaru _had_ said that he'd never appear in public with Jiraiya again if he kept doing dramatic introductions. He should probably stop doing them. Later. Next week. If he felt like it.

Gamabunta leapt up to avoid the fox's bucking. Jiraiya and Tsunade jumped down to keep fighting. The fox spat out another ball of chakra, straight up at Gamabunta. He dispelled just as it hit.

Jiraiya winced. It'd take more than that to kill the old toad, but Gamabunta wouldn't be hopping away unscathed tonight. (And Jiraiya would definitely be getting an earful later).

The Nine-Tails reared its head back while its chakra, somehow, spiked higher. A giant sphere formed, as big as the fox's head, growing darker as the chakra in it grew denser. It was making a tailed beast ball. Sages be damned—and she included her grandfather in that—there was no way she could stop _that_. Even if she interrupted it now, she'd just set it off prematurely and get obliterated at close range.

"Could _really use_ Orochimaru right now!" Tsunade shouted.

"Octuple Roshomon," a voice said behind them.

Eight massive gates rose up underneath them, three deep, three wide, two gates in the middle layer, each taller than the Nine-Tails.

Jiraiya scoffed. " _Sure,_ he _hates_ dramatic intros," he grumbled. Leave it to Orochimaru to claim he hated something Jiraiya did before quietly one-upping him at it.

"Dammit Orochimaru!" said Tsunade. "You just leveled nine city blocks!" Orochimaru always rode the edge of what was acceptable, on and off the battlefield.

"Oh? Would you rather I let the Nine-Tails level them?" Orochimaru answered. The tailed-beast ball hit the gates. Tsunade and Jiraiya had to shield their eyes from the brilliant flare-up of chakra as it detonated.

Tsunade glanced around. Orochimaru hadn't quite saved the _entire_ city. She winced. Hidden Leaf's small footprint made it much easier to defend and patrol. But with almost two million people packed into a circle eight miles across, whatever did penetrate its walls could do a lot of damage, fast.

"We all value some lives more than others. Sometimes, it's the many over the few," Orochimaru said pointedly.

The strange sigil filling the monster's eyes faded. Beneath them, at the feet of the Roshomon, three dozen senior jounin led by the Third Fire Shadow rushed in to press the attack.

A three-pronged kunai landed by them, piercing the Roshomon like ordinary stone, the present Fire Shadow flashing to it. Orochimaru's eyebrows perked ever so slightly—he never stopped being impressed by the Fourth's technique.

"Kushina was kidnapped and the Nine-Tails was pulled out of her. Her kidnapper hypnotized it and sent it here," he said.

"Madara Uchiha was the only one who could control tailed beasts," Tsunade said. (There had supposedly been others who could, but only Madara had ever been seen wielding a tailed beast.) Her grandmother had told stories about him—none of them good.

Minato hesitated. It'd be so easy to lie and let them think it was Madara and not his student. But the truth was vital information.

"It was Obito Uchiha," he said. "Yes, _my dead student_ ," he added when saw the looks on their faces. "He has wood release, can teleport and phase through matter and chakra, and has a completed Copy Wheel."

Jiraiya and Tsunade's eyebrows shot up at that, while Orochimaru just looked _extremely_ interested.

"I sent Sakumo to secure Obito's other targets," said Minato. ("Secure Obito's other target" and not "save Sakumo's own son.")

"The rest of you, I need you to help Lord Third and restrain the Nine-Tails for a minute," Minato continued. "I have a seal to prepare."

Holding a tailed beast in place was somewhat easier than forcing it to move. You just had to try really hard to move it and fail. All three used their summons this time. Jiraiya called out Gamaken (Gamabunta being too injured to continue), Tsunade following with Katsuyu, and Orochimaru with the always-frightening Manda. Tsunade felt a little nostalgic; they hadn't fought together like this in a long time. (In retrospect, Orochimaru's favorite summons had done a lot to numb her to the fox's killing intent. The Nine-Tails' chakra was unmatched, but its malevolent will was only slightly worse than Manda's.)

Away from the fight, Minato made twelve handsigns very slowly, each one paired with a seal spreading across his skin. Combining signing and sealing into one technique was the pinnacle of both ninja arts, and it pushed even his skills to the limit. It was the key to the strongest technique Minato knew. It was the last Uzumaki technique Kushina had taught him, shortly after she'd told him she was pregnant.

Minato didn't have the Senju's wood release, or the Uzumaki's chains. Either would've let him force the Nine-Tails where he wanted. This was the only technique he knew strong enough to force the strongest of tailed beasts into a living sacrifice. It was a forbidden technique. But that was fine. The sacrifice was only himself, and he would gladly make it.

Manda had just gotten a particularly good grip on the Nine-Tails when a ghostly hand, palm bigger than the Nine-Tails itself, dove in and grabbed the monster. The giant snake snarled at it, furious that something was taking his prey from him. (And what prey it was! The Nine-Tails was the first to match, even surpass, his killing intent.) But he didn't fight it, because he recognized true power when he saw it.

Orochimaru leaned forward. He'd heard about this, the ultimate secret technique of the Uzumaki. _Death God Summoning Seal_. A technique so powerful it could defeat _anything_. Kushina had refused to share it with him. This might be the only time he got to see it. The massive hand dragged the Nine-Tails away from the village. Orochimaru followed.

"Hey, wait! I don't think we should follow!" said Jiraiya. Orochimaru ignored him. He _had_ to see this.

* * *

Death itself dragged the Nine-Tails to the safe house Minato had left Kushina at.

Minato knew she'd be dead by now. Minato tried to ignore what he saw, his baby held by a black ops ninja, his lover just a corpse. This wasn't what he wanted to die seeing.

"Lord Fourth," said the ninja holding Naruto. "What are you doing?"

"Naruto's an Uzumaki, like Kushina. They're the only who can contain the Nine-Tails."

Even knowing he was going to die, and that Death would devour him as payment for summoning it, Minato refused to abandon Naruto completely. He refused to give everything for the village and leave nothing for his child. If he had to split his soul in two and steal one half from Death itself, then by every sage and every god, he would do so.

As he wrestled the Nine-Tails into Naruto, as he painted the seal onto their small body, he wrung his soul out. He poured every bit of love and all his hopes for them and Kushina into that seal. He didn't feel it was enough but it would have to be enough.

"Naruto, you are _my son_ , and I love you very, very much," he said softly. His first words to his newborn were also his last.

* * *

"Zetsu," Madara said, "It's time."

The white plant split apart, revealing a human underneath. Just a random person from the closest village, so worthless they couldn't even fight the illusion trapping them. Good for little more than sacrifice, and taken by Zetsu for just that.

He released the illusion, wanting them to be awake for this, to learn what their final purpose in life would be. As they struggled and panicked, Madara spoke.

"Kill them now."

Madara looked at the Zetsu lying at his feet. This was a very special one. It held a partial copy of his own flesh, not cloned with a technique but grown in his lab. It was the core of the greatest curse ever made.

He kneeled on the seal drawn around it and wrung himself out, pouring his life force, his chakra, his memories, and above all else his endless hatred and resentment into it.

The white Zetsu grew darker and darker. It wasn't blank anymore, no longer weak-willed and complacent. It was special. It had malice. It had memories. It had _will_.

"Black Zetsu," Madara said as he died, "you will carry my will forward. Keep Obito, Nagato, and the others to the plan. Find different others to keep to new plans if they fail. Remember that you embody the will of a god— _me_."

Thus passed the seventh and greatest reincarnation of Indra Otsutsuki, firstborn son of the Sage of Six Paths. And the eighth and final reincarnation was born.

* * *

Mikoto didn't remember Itachi crying this much when he'd been born, but to be fair, Itachi hadn't been born when the Nine-Tails was attacking, when the air itself was laced with chakra and killing intent. The hospital's seals blocked most of it, but babies tended to be particularly sensitive to those sorts of things.

"Can I hold him?" asked Itachi.

"Itachi, I'm really tired," said Mikoto. "Can you just shut up for an hour?" Itachi had been very excited to be getting a younger sibling. It'd been cute before, but right now Mikoto had just birthed a small human being and she was not in the mood for any cute family bullshit.

The door burst open. A black ops ninja. This must be important. "Lord Uchiha, Lady Uchiha!" they said. "The Nine-Tails is attacking the village. It's your duty to—"

 _Three_ pairs of Copy Wheel eyes bore into him.

"Lady Uchiha is indisposed right now," Mikoto cut in. "In case you couldn't tell."

"And Lord Uchiha is keeping to his first duty with his family," said Fugaku. "From what I understand, the village hasn't been leveled yet and the Three Greats, plus the White Fang and Fourth Fire Shadow, are already fighting. If they fail, then perhaps I'll step in. Until then, my first duty is here."

Softly, calculatedly, Itachi asked to hold Sasuke again. Mother was distracted now, which made it an excellent time to get what he wanted.

"Sages be damned," she snapped at him, never taking her eyes off the paralyzed ninja in the doorway. " _Yes_ , you can hold Sasuke."

* * *

Black Zetsu ate Madara's body. That was part of the curse. Then Black Zetsu, who was new and weak, pulled the life out of all the other Zetsus in the cavern. The light-giving seals, powered by the Zetsus, were snuffed out alongside them.

It settled in the darkness, close to Obito. It was here to hold him to the plan, after all.

* * *

Rin was worrying and worrying and worrying. Her cavern was blocked shut, and a seal kept her from forcing her way out. The Three-Tails was filling her mind with storms, roaring out, "Today! It's happening today! Act now or be destroyed!"

The monster's fear of that awful Kaleidoscope eye was now matched by her own, and she finally let some of its power out. The entire wall was leveled easily, and now the hard part was not running away. Because the monster wanted her to leave, and it was battering her psyche with that one thought, to escape the danger, but Rin refused to leave her friend behind.

She fell to her knees, if only to keep herself from running, and she thought that one thought over and over again. She would not. She would not. She didn't care what the Three-Tails thought of her friendship. She wouldn't abandon Obito over something he hadn't even done yet.

"You're a fool and we'll both die because of it," the monster said.

Rin waited for more, but the storm quieted. Had it given up?

She stood slowly and walked—not ran; she was afraid if she ran her legs would take her far away—towards the central chamber, where Obito trained and where Madara sat on his throne.

* * *

Her best friend was asleep in the middle of a seal in the middle of a pitch-black cave. Rin had never needed a lighting technique in this cavern before. Madara had liked it dim, but not lightless. Obito was okay at least, but Madara was just gone. Weird. It wasn't like him to leave Obito in the main cavern alone.

Obito suddenly woke up screaming. _He'd killed teacher he'd killed Kushina he'd killed Kakashi_ — he'd felt their life forces drop to nothing and his eye still showed Kakashi finally getting the death he deserved, still showed the Nohara compound... It was a vision it was a nightmare and it'd been real so real he knew it was real.

"Obito, what happened?" Rin asked, hands on his shoulders as he sat up. "Are you okay?"

Darkness reached out and covered his right half. Obito stopped screaming as it spilled across half his face. He ran his darkened wood arm through Rin's heart. Branches grew into her chest, blocking any healing and pinning her as she bled.

In her head the Three-Tails roared, "KILL HIM!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sealing team holding back the Nine-Tails is my attempt at explaining why the strongest monster of all couldn't destroy one measly city despite being given several minutes to do so.
> 
> Black Zetsu is just a servant of Madara here; Kaguya does not feature in this story. I feel Madara was perfectly fine as the final villain in the original series, thank you very much Kishimoto.
> 
> I take worldbuilding very seriously, and one of my problems with the Naruto series is how _small_ it feels. The five great ninja nations supposedly dominate an entire continent, but one of the mightiest clans (the Uchiha) was still small enough to be killed by a single person in one night, and the army gathered by the united ninja forces for the final battle against Madara is only 80,000 strong. So if the numbers I'm throwing around (1,000 sealing ninja, 2 million people in a city, etc) seem big, that's only because canon Naruto is comically small-scale.
> 
> I've actually put a lot of thought into the population and demographics of the ninja world. (Seriously, I have spreadsheets.) The population I'm writing Hidden Leaf with is 1.78 million, at least at the time of this chapter. I'm assuming the city itself is an 8-mile-wide circle, which works out to roughly 50 square miles. That's an average density of about 36,000 people per mile, which is pretty reasonable considering you can easily hit 26,000 people per mile just with the sort of two-story apartment buildings the series shows Sakura and Naruto living in.
> 
> I'm using the official ninja world map, but since none of the official maps have any scaling, I arbitrarily pegged the continent itself as about the size of Antarctica, making the Land of Fire itself about 926,000 square miles. Assuming a population density similar to India's in the late 1800s, that's about 115 million people.
> 
> I could keep going for many, many more paragraphs, but rest assured, any numbers you see have a crap-ton of thought behind them.


	7. Among the Ruins

* * *

Karura stalked over to Sasori, irritably joining him in the punishing, sandy wind. The One-Tail often caused sandstorms like that, though neither minded it so much. She was a wind master and could redirect it around her, while Sasori probably couldn't even feel it.

"I'm surprised you left Gaara's side," said Sasori.

She scowled, but not in his direction. "The old bat said I was getting in the way."

She dropped the scowl. "This was a poor night to do this. The One-Tail's even more aggressive than usual." It wouldn't stop roaring and lunging against its restraints.

The One-Tail's roars grew louder and the wind grew harsher.

"How do you know this is a bad night?" asked Sasori, eyes fixed on the monster.

"Air feels off," she observed. "And the One-Tail isn't focused on anyone close by. It's staring east."

"Do you think it senses something we can't?" asked Sasori.

She shrugged. "Maybe. If the previous living sacrifice wasn't already dead, I'd say we should put off the resealing until whatever it is goes away."

They both knew that wasn't really an option. The sealing team would just have to work harder tonight.

* * *

There was a storm in Rin's head. Waves crashed against her mind while branches filled her body.

"Kill him now!" the Three-Tails roared in her head. She was suffocating, drowning in the monster's roaring rapids while her lungs filled with leaves.

She looked into Obito's eye. His Kaleidoscope was on, but she saw the fear in it. She knew he was seeing the real her, not an idealized future her she didn't want.

"No," she said to monster in her head. "You will get rid of _that thing_ that's controlling him, and the 'curse around his heart' that you talked about."

"You would die for the boy who's killing you?!" demanded the monster, more furious than incredulous.

"I'm not dying. And neither is Obito," she insisted. "That's my choice."

" _Fine_ ," it snapped.

Rin felt immense chakra pour out of her. It was so thick she could see it, a deep, dark red ooze. It seared her own skin. To her horror, it spread to Obito, and to her even greater horror, she felt her own arm pull back and slam forward into Obito's heart.

This was the most scared Obito had ever been. Some _thing_ was covering his skin, forcing him to stab his best friend. He felt—no, he saw—the monster's surging chakra. He saw Rin's eyes turn red like the Three-Tails'. He was scared that he'd killed her, that the monster was all that was left, and even as multiple voices screamed out in his head for the future, for the Eye of the Moon, he saw Three-Tails Rin draw her arm back and just accepted he was going to die tonight.

Black Zetsu shrieked as the Three-Tails slammed Rin's arm into Obito. The boy's heart was incinerated by the beast's chakra, along with the Heart's Curse around it. Its anchor to Obito was gone. Perhaps later, when it wasn't newly-born and had absorbed many more lives, it could both force its will on him and endlessly absorb tailed beast chakra. But now, without the Heart's Curse resonating with Madara's will inside Obito, and with scarcely more than a few dozen people's worth of life force inside it, Black Zetsu could already feel Obito pulling his branches out of Rin and the Three-Tails' chakra burning into it, scraping it off the boy.

"You can't deny what you've done. You can't deny the Moon's Eye," Black Zetsu hissed in Obito's ear. "This is the _only_ path open to you, and I will _always_ be there, guiding you down it."

It let go. There were backup plans. Always a backup plan. Time to retreat. Black Zetsu let the foul chakra cloak reach out and push it off Obito. It wormed away and melted into the ground.

Once he felt the thing covering him gone, Obito opened up Authority. He was scared, of the strange Black Zetsu stalking him and of Rin, losing control of the monster. He was so tired from fighting that he could barely manage to pull Rin and himself into his personal dimension, where there were no Zetsus to haunt him and no way for the Three-Tails to hurt anyone.

His second-to-last thought, just before he passed out with Rin's arm where his heart should be, was that he was going to die. His last thought was that was exactly what he deserved.

* * *

"Naruto, you are _my son_ , and I love you very, very much,"

Jiraiya would probably consider this a very sad moment. Of course, Jiraiya also said not to follow Minato and the Nine-Tails. For Orochimaru, it was exhilarating. He'd just witnessed the Death God Summoning Seal and the creation of a new living sacrifice.

"Orochimaru," said Minato.

"Yes, Lord Fourth?" he answered, stepping closer. The Fire shadow was a sensor. Orochimaru wasn't surprised he knew he was there.

Minato turned to face Orochimaru. He looked exhausted and deathly pale. Orochimaru wasn't a sensor, but he didn't need to read Minato's chakra to know the other man was about to die.

"I'm entrusting you with the attacker's body," the Fire Shadow said. Holding one of his special kunai, he flickered briefly in place, a body suddenly laying at his feet. "I don't think this is the real Obito. Leaf has an enemy with dangerous abilities."

Orochimaru stared with great interest at Obito's corpse. An artificial being of some kind, bearing wood release and a fully-awakened Copy Wheel? It was a dream come true for him.

"I understand what needs to be done. No enemy of Hidden Leaf should know more about its secrets than us," he responded. Especially not more than himself.

Minato nodded tiredly. "One other thing," he said, stumbling forward, tripping over the corpse. "Bring back Kushina."

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow at that. It wasn't that he couldn't, rather that Minato shouldn't have known he could.

"Oh? And how would you presume I do that?"

"Don't fuck with me, Orochimaru," said the Fire Shadow. "I know all about your obsession with immortality, and I know about the scrolls you've discovered."

"It's been over ten minutes since her death," Orochimaru responded. "Her soul's moved on to the Pure Land. Assuming I did know how to, it would almost certainly cost another life to bring it back. Surely the great and caring Minato Namikaze isn't asking me to use a forbidden technique?" Orochimaru was relishing this. He'd studiously avoided bending the rules too far for years, holding himself back as a courtesy to the ninja village that commanded his loyalty. And now, here was the Fire Shadow himself, begging him to break those rules.

"This is my..." Minato tried to step forward, but he stumbled again. Orochimaru caught him.

"This is my last order as Fire Shadow," he continued, voice quiet and ragged. " _You will bring her back_ or so help me, I'll hunt you down... in the next life."

Orochimaru waited, but Minato had ceased talking. Such was the way of corpses.

"Very well, Lord Fourth," he said. "I am nothing if not loyal to my Fire Shadow." He laid Minato on the ground and stood up.

Kushina was lucky. Her soul may have moved on, but her corpse was fresh and entirely undamaged. He didn't need to make a cursed body of ashes to carry her soul when her original body was still available. As an added benefit, she might even come out of it properly alive, rather than undead.

"You, Sparrow," he barked at the black ops ninja holding the infant. "You swore to protect the Nine-Tails' living sacrifice and the Fourth Fire Shadow with your life. You failed. But you can still fulfill your Fire Shadow's last order."

Orochimaru worked very hard to keep from grinning the whole time. There were other black ops ninja around, after all, and it would reflect poorly on him in their reports, which he would never read. Still, you could hardly blame him for being in a good mood. Impure World Resurrection was a magnificent technique.

* * *

Jiraiya barged into the clearing, emerging from the woods around what remained of the safe house. Tsunade was close behind him.

"Is Minato—" he started to ask. Orochimaru cut him off.

"Very dead. But Kushina made a miraculous recovery."

Jiraiya had had a feeling this was going to happen. The fact of it still hammered him, leaving him speechless. _Minato was the Child of Prophecy. He wasn't supposed to die_.

Tsunade stepped forward, narrowing her eyes. _What kind of "miracle"_ , she wanted to ask, but then she saw Kushina's body leaned up against a tree, pale but breathing, and rushed over to her. Jiraiya instinctively followed, still reeling, letting his team instincts drive him when nothing else could.

 _This is impossible. A living sacrifice can't survive having their prisoner removed._ Still, Tsunade could tell that Kushina, while unconscious, at least seemed very much alive. "How could she survive the Nine-Tails' extraction?" asked Tsunade. She looked at Jiraiya, who had more experience with these kinds of seals.

"I don't know. It's impossible," Jiraiya muttered. It was all impossible. Kids coming back from the dead, the invincible destroyed, and sacrifices undone. He looked up at Orochimaru. "How?" he asked, then after a moment of thought, he narrowed his eyes and pressed. "What did you do?" The impossible could be done, it's just the cost was always too high.

"I merely obeyed the Fire Shadow's orders to the letter and to the end," said Orochimaru, a little too cheerily.

Tsunade was satisfied now that Kushina was really, truly alive and glanced up at Orochimaru. She saw he was holding the infant. Amidst all the ruins, it was still the most disturbing thing she'd seen all night.

* * *

Rin slammed into a new, harder floor. Her arm was still rammed through Obito and she pulled it out. Obito wrenched his own arm back, now a stump half-dissolved by the Three-Tails' chakra.

"I removed the Heart's Curse from the boy," grumbled the Three-Tails in her head. "The living curse that bound itself to him is also gone."

 _Living curse? The stuff that covered Obito?_ She wanted to ask what the hell a living curse even was, and also where she was, but she was distracted by the pain. Yes, she hurt around the edges of the wound, and she could feel the emptiness where there should be something, but, strangely, the hole in her chest itself wasn't debilitating. No, what hurt was the Three-Tails' chakra. It burned her skin where it rolled across, and where it congealed and plugged the gap in her body it felt like acid chewing her out from the inside. She wanted to scream but the huge, gaping hole in her chest prevented her. Again.

It took way too long to heal.

"Wood release resists my chakra," said the monster. "Your suffering is incidental, not my goal."

That didn't make her feel any better. What did feel better was its chakra disappearing and being able to breathe normally again.

Obito opened his eye. He didn't know how long he'd been out of it, but Rin was still within arm's reach and just now sitting up.

"Ugh. Sure, why don't both my teammates have a go at me?" she groaned. She looked at Obito and saw he was conscious. "Where are we? And what happened?" she asked.

He sat up. "This is my dimension."

"We're in your God's Authority place?"

He nodded. She looked around. Obito's dimension was a sea of giant gray stone blocks, some raised higher, some sunk lower, some with gaps between them. She couldn't see any light sources, and there were no shadows, but it was still almost as bright as twilight and she could see just fine.

She looked back at him. His knees were pulled up to his chest now. "Obito," she asked, "What _was_ that?"

"I don't know. But I didn't attack you!" he insisted. "It was that thing. I've never seen it before, but..." he trailed off.

"But what?"

"It sounded like a Zetsu." It'd sounded willful and menacing, different from any previous Zetsu he'd spoken with, but the voice itself was definitely a Zetsu's.

"The Three-Tails called it a 'living curse'," Rin added. They both certainly kept great company, didn't they?

"What happened?" she asked again. "Where's Madara? What was that seal you were laying on?"

Obito was quiet for a moment. "I killed everyone."

She stared blankly at him. "What?"

"I..." he wasn't sure what to say. "I was in Hidden Leaf. I attacked Minato. And Kushina. I think... they had a kid?"

She doubted him now. "It was just a nightmare, Obito," she said. It certainly sounded like a nightmare.

He looked her in the eye, the first time since he'd woken up with a hole in his chest, and flicked on his Copy Wheel. She flinched.

"The Copy Wheel doesn't memorize dreams, Rin. Or illusions," he said. It was why illusions didn't work on the Copy Wheel. And it was why Uchiha were never scared of nightmares. "Madara sent me. He wanted the Nine-Tails, and Kushina had it. And he wanted revenge on Leaf, so I think he made me..." he trailed off.

"Made you _what_ , Obito," Rin pressed him. If he really had attacked the village, then she needed to what, exactly, had happened. Was her clan okay? If Madara was behind the attack, she wouldn't put it past him to attack her clan. "I need to know."

* * *

Mikoto couldn't feel the Fox's chakra anymore. Another Uchiha, a middle-aged chunin, stopped by her hospital room.

"The Nine-Tailed Fox has been resealed. The Fourth Fire Shadow is dead," the older woman announced.

"And Kushina Uzumaki?" asked Mikoto. Nobody could survive a tailed beast being pulled out of them, but she still hoped that maybe her friend had survived. Or in the very least, kicked all kinds of ass and left a few craters outside of Leaf. It was how she would've wanted to go.

"Lady Tsunade says she's still alive," she answered. "Lady Uzumaki has been transferred here."

Mikoto nodded. That made sense. The public hospitals were probably already full, and surrounding her with Uchiha MPs would be the greatest security available.

It was perfect, really. The military police were almost entirely Uchiha, and no one would dare attack their stronghold. And like all prominent clans, the Uchiha were large enough—nearly 138,000 total clan members when Mikoto last checked the roster—that their compound had its own hospital.

 _A bit late for enhanced security_ , _though_ , Mikoto thought. "Here? Which room?" she asked. _My best friend is alive_.

"I'll find out, Lady Mikoto," said the ninja before leaving the room.

"You're not seriously thinking of visiting her, are you?" asked Fugaku.

"Of course I am. She just lost her husband and maybe even her baby. What kind of friend would I be if I _didn't_ go to her?" she said.

She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "Now, you can help me get to her, or I'm going to body flicker right there, and spend two minutes vomiting." She was dog-tired from childbirth—she was physically spent in a way ninja rarely experienced, which meant her chakra reserves were so low that she was cutting into her life force. (Still, it wasn't anything worse than what she'd experienced in the Third Ninja World War, or when she'd birthed Itachi.)

"What about Sasuke?" Fugaku asked. Itachi was still holding them.

She gave Fugaku that impatient I'm-the-head-of-the-household look she normally reserved for servants who weren't moving fast enough. "He's coming with me, of course."

Fugaku raised an eyebrow. "You were going to body flicker while carrying a baby?"

Mikoto paused at that. "Of course I'd never do something that stupid. I'm just impatient. I need to be there for my old teammate. You'd do the same."

Fugaku nodded. He would. Any proper ninja would.

* * *

"Mikoto!" Kushina shouted, her face brightening when she saw her friend.

Mikoto rushed over. Which is to say, she carefully passed Sasuke to a nurse who was hovering around them, before awkwardly wheeling herself over to Kushina's bed with all the grace of someone who'd never been in a wheelchair before.

When Mikoto was as close as she could get, she hauled herself up next to Kushina. She thought she heard a nurse object, but she ignored whoever it was.

"You're alive," she said, hugging her, then pulling back and grasping Kushina's hand. "I was afraid... what happened?"

Kushina frowned. "We were attacked. The Nine-Tails was pulled out of me."

Mikoto was struck by how very sad she looked.

"It was Obito."

"What?" Mikoto responded. _Minato's old student? Wasn't he dead?_ "How?"

Orochimaru hovered towards the back of Kushina's room. He didn't care much for gratuitous displays of friendship (a simple "I see you're still alive" was what he would've done in Mikoto's place), but he stayed because he was eager to gather information from a revived (former) living sacrifice. This was the first human soul he'd tried Impure World Resurrection on. Had she actually reached the Pure Land? Did she remember it? There were so many things he wanted to know!

He was also quite pleased that Kushina was alive. Being undead had certain benefits, but also drawbacks that Orochimaru considered unacceptable. It was why he considered Impure World Resurrection only a first step towards immortality, rather than the final technique. It also avoided many awkward questions.

* * *

Kushina was dead. Minato was dead. Obito had felt his life force fade to nothing.

"What about Kakashi?!" pressed Rin, sitting close to Obito, leaning closer in her panic. This was too much for her. She wasn't the like old Kakashi, she couldn't learn people she cared about were dead and feel nothing.

"I don't know. I think—"

"You think? Does the Copy Wheel show you what's real or not?!"

"I don't know!" he snapped back at her. "The Kaleidoscope shows me what I want and how to get it. I don't always know what's now and what's then!"

That didn't clear things up but it certainly explained why he acted so weird when he had it on.

"I—Madara—wanted him dead," Obito continued. "I think I made him commit seppuku? I think I left before he could do it? I didn't try to sense him before I came back."

"Is that it?" she asked. "Then you came straight back here?"

"No, I—" he clammed up, staring at her.

She waited, then couldn't anymore. "You what?"

"I went to the Nohara," he said.

"You _what?!_ " she yelled. For the first time since he'd started talking, she reached out to him, gripping him tightly by the shoulders.

"And. You. Did. What." She bit out, glare boring into him. Her clan didn't deserve it. They'd already suffered so much. Wasn't it enough? Hadn't they lost enough? Hadn't _she_ lost enough?

She felt the Three-Tails rumbling. The floor dropped out from her and she landed in an ocean of chakra, cool, wet, and salty, but still searing into her.

"I can't undo what hurt you, but I can _remove_ the source," the monster said, it's voice an undertow pulling her deeper.

Obito went limp in her crushing grip. He felt the monstrous spike in chakra. And for the first time, his Kaleidoscope showed a vision of his own death. He was okay with it.

He repeated something he'd last said when he still thought Rin was dead, when he'd last slaughtered people he thought he hated.

"I am already in hell."

With the Kaleidoscope, he pushed aside the Three-Tail's will. Her hands were still burning him with chakra but her eyes were no longer red like the monster's.

"I'm okay with dying if you're the one who kills me," he said, a little sad but mostly just calm. He was already in hell, but Rin didn't need to follow him. He'd pull her away from the monster, then, if she still wanted to kill him, he could take her back to Hidden Leaf and let her do so, in full control of herself.

"Madara wanted them dead. But all I can remember is telling Lady Nohara that she wasn't safe. That Hidden Leaf could throw any of us away," he said.

She blinked. "What?" she asked. "My family's alive? You didn't hurt them?"

He nodded. "Somebody used a seal and Madara lost control of me. We just talked."

The tailed beast chakra dropped to nothing.

* * *

Maki stared at the One-Tail, a little scared but mostly fascinated.

Chiyo strolled over to her. The seal was set up now, it just needed to be applied. Her work was finished, and she only stuck around in case something went wrong, and because her family was close by.

"Maki," she said to her. "Understand, you'll be Gaara's mentor as he grows up."

Maki looked up at her, wide-eyed. (Thank the sages they were upwind from the monster's sandstorm.)

"I—yes, Lady Second," she stuttered, taken aback that somebody like the Second Wind Shadow would approach her.

Chiyo waved her hand dismissively. "Don't be so nervous. You've done a fine job of controlling the Seven-Tails for the last six years. But Gaara needs a peer, someone who can understand him and, if necessary, overpower him should he fail to control the One-Tail."

Maki was already over her nervousness. She'd never needed much encouragement that way. She drew herself up and said, "Thanks. But I'm not scared."

Okay, so she was only twelve, could barely remembered her own sealing, and had only graduated into genin last year. But she thought she was pretty good at stuff, and hey, the Second Wind Shadow even trusted her with important jobs!

The Seven-Tails decided this was a great time to start talking. It never was. "You know this'd be a _great_ time to make trouble, right? Think of all the fun we could have! And all the boring stiffs are stuck babysitting a big dumb desert raccoon, so we can really cut loose!"

Maki pursed her lips and ignored it. The Seven-Tails had horrible ideas about "fun". The one time she'd listened, she'd turned an entire training field into a crater and almost killed her best friend.

"Do you hate me?" she asked the older woman. Maki took whatever opportunities she got. She wanted to know, from the source, and here Lady Second was.

Chiyo looked down at the girl. "I beg your pardon?"

"I heard that you hated the Seven-Tails, and I thought maybe—"

Chiyo rolled her eyes. "Who told you that? And why would that make me hate you?"

"Kazan did," she answered.

 _The previous One-Tail living sacrifice?_ Chiyo's opinion of him took a sudden, posthumous downturn. And he'd seemed like such a disciplined man, too.

"I don't hate you. Nor do I hate the Seven-Tails," Chiyo said. "I merely resent the First Wind Shadow's decision to accept it over the Eight-Tails in the First Shadow Treaty."

"Why?" asked Maki.

Chiyo sighed, exasperated. She was an old woman and shouldn't have to put up with any of this. "Didn't you pay attention in history class? The tailed beasts were obviously supposed to be split between the great villages so each had nine tails worth, to maintain the balance of power. Leaf got the Nine-Tails, Stone the Four and Five-tails, and Mist the Three and Six-Tails."

"I don't think they talked about that part," Maki said.

Chiyo grumbled to herself. "Such disrespect for their own history." Then, more clearly, she continued. "My father—the First Wind Shadow—, rather than negotiate for the Eight-Tails, as it was clearly due to us, asked for the Seven-Tails."

"Not to be rude," said Maki, suspecting that she was being rude but forging ahead anyway, "but hasn't the Seven-Tailed Scarab always belonged to us? I mean, they worshipped it in the Imperial Era and everything." She remembered that much from history class, at least. Really, she'd find the Seven-Tailed royalty of the sands kind of cool if, you know, it wasn't stuffed inside of her.

Chiyo looked at her sternly. "The First Wind Shadow wasn't as wise as everyone thinks. The Eight-Tailed Ox produces _water_ —that's its natural element. Better to have unlimited water chakra than a second sand demon in the desert."

Father had had his reasons. The Eight-Tails had long lived in Lighting Country, just like the Seven-Tails had lived in the desert. Human conceit could only hold them for so long. They would've naturally gravitated towards their favorite territories. Even with living sacrifices containing them, it would've only been a matter of time until someone lost control and the beast headed into enemy territory. Wars would start.

Chiyo rejected this reasoning. Water was more precious than peace. War could be endured while hunger and thirst could not.

* * *

"It's finished," declared Kouzen. "Gaara is now the One-Tail's living sacrifice."

"What next, Lord Third?" asked Rasa, standing next to him. Lady Second and her twin brother were headed toward them, both looking ready to unload a stern lecture.

"I'm going to visit my mother," the Wind Shadow said. Unfortunately, resealing the One-Tail had prevented him from comforting his now-widowed mother. But that was all out of the way now.

"Clean up, Rasa," Kouzen said, and promptly dissolved into iron sand.

"By sage, what an asshole," mumbled Rasa, bracing himself to face Lady Second alone.

* * *

Rin's grip on him loosened. He mumbled something.

"What?" she asked. He brushed off her hands and stood up.

"I can fix this," he said. His Kaleidoscope was still on.

She narrowed her eyes. "You can't undo death."

No, but he could undo the loss. "I can _fix_ it," he insisted. "None of this matters with the Eye of the Moon."

"Obito, you can't," she insisted in turn. She stood up as well, and when their eyes met, she knew his Kaleidoscope once again saw something other than what was in front of him. "It won't be real."

She was getting angry again. She'd almost died, and Obito was _still_ going to be stupid and make a stupid, fake world after making the real one even worse? Was he _trying_ to be shitty?

"It doesn't matter if it's real, Rin," he said. "What matters is if it _feels_ real." He started walking over to a different stone block, one raised high enough to look like a wall.

"Where are you going?" she demanded, following him.

Obito kept supplies here, including some of what he needed for Madara's—now Obito's—plans. Though Rin probably didn't know that. "I can't just sit around," he said. "The world needs Infinite Tsukuyomi. _I_ need Infinite Tsukuyomi."

On impulse, Rin grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and pinned him to the wall. " _I_ don't need it," she said.

"Rin, I have to do this."

" _You will not_. I forbid it," she said sternly. "You _will not_ start a war, you _will not_ kill thousands, you _will not_ take everything from me and everyone else."

He was silent for a moment, Kaleidoscope shifting from that thousand-yard, hundred-year stare to focus on the her in front of him. "I already have."

She hated his words but was grateful that he could actually meet her eyes. "You don't have to make it worse," she begged. "Obito, please, turn off your Copy Wheel. If what you've seen is so bad, just turn it off."

"I can't," he said softly. "The vision's all I have."

Why did he have to sound so damn sad? " _I'm_ here, damn it, Obito! _We're_ all we have!"

They stared at each other, Rin waiting for him to turn his eye normal. He did, but now he seemed even more reluctant to meet her eyes. She let go of him and he slid to the ground.

"I'm sorry, Rin," he said. She knew he meant it, but it didn't make her feel any better. And honestly, that he was sorry was sort of a given, because she knew Obito. It's not like she expected him feel good about himself after being mind-controlled into attempting genocide.

She closed her eyes and sighed wearily. She wanted to go home. She wanted to see her clan so badly. And she could help! It was her duty as a medic ninja of Hidden Leaf to assist her own village. She could do loads of good, rather than moping around with a twice-traumatized Obito.

And yet.

She was just one medic. Leaf had, what, nearly 50,000 medic ninjas? And only half of them were out in the field at any given time. What difference would a single fifteen-year-old special jounin make? Worse, she still didn't have control of the Three-Tails. The monster had almost taken over just now. Would it have let go if Obito hadn't stopped it?

And also.

Obito. He couldn't go back. Not now. He'd be killed on sight after what he did. She'd have to leave him here, and she knew, if she did, he'd do something terrible. He might let himself drown, like she had, and lash out at the world. (He'd drown in self-loathing and despair, until the only way to breathe was the Eye of the Moon.) Or... she simply wouldn't have a friend left to come back to.

No. She'd already lost the rest of her team, and she refused to let go of her friend. The only person she knew, for sure, she could help was Obito.

She kneeled down in front of him.

"Rin?" asked Obito nervously.

"I hate Madara, not you. You're still my best friend and teammate." She pulled him close. "I'm not going anywhere."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's twice now Rin's experienced the trauma of dying without any of the benefits of actually being dead. Her life really is a shitshow.
> 
> Can you tell that I really like melodrama?
> 
> More worldbuilding! I attempted to spruce up the background of the tailed beasts, and also rewrote the Seven-Tails so it belongs to Wind Country. Kishimoto almost did a nine-tails-for-each-major-village thing, but he clearly couldn't commit to it, because that would've entailed putting more than five minutes of thought into worldbuilding, and Kishimoto had checks to cash.
> 
> Maki is not an OC, she just doesn't get a lot of screen time in the original series.
> 
> And yes, 138,000 Uchiha. They were supposedly world-famous for the entirety of the Warring Clans Era—you don't get that kind of fame and success if you can only take a few missions at a time. There were enough of them to maintain a sizeable fortress even while accepting many missions—Itachi and Sasuke had their big battle in the ruins of it. They were also numerous enough that they could marry among themselves without inbreeding becoming a problem. (The minimum viable genetic population for humans is, depending on who you ask, somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000. This is why the Uchiha can afford their obsession with heritage while Sakumo Hatake had to find a wife outside of his clan.) Again, one of Kishimoto's problems is how small he thinks. So no, the Uchiha aren't a group of people who can be killed in one night by two ninjas, any whispers of rebellion will make the rest of Hidden Leaf shit a brick for good reason, and any civil war they start is going to be a _war_.


	8. Hold On to What's Left

* * *

Mikoto sat silently next to Kushina. She already knew Minato was dead. But what about...?

The Copy Wheel, unfortunately, for all that it could read the finest details of body language, was useless as a conversational guide. Not that Mikoto would turn it on here and now, even if it did help. The Copy Wheel was a weapon, bared to kill or intimidate. Never for precious moments. (The great irony of her bloodline, and maybe the source of the Curse of Hatred some elders still whispered about, was that, since the Copy Wheel was a weapon and handled like a weapon should, Uchiha could barely remember their most intimate moments, even as they had perfect recall of every fight and every failure.)

"Did the baby survive?" Mikoto finally asked.

Kushina's face darkened. Oh damn.

"They took Naruto away," she grumbled.

Mikoto blinked. "They're alive?" _She really did go with "Naruto"?_

"I didn't get to hold him for sages knew how long, then I get three minutes before passing out anyway," Kushina said, sitting up straighter and getting louder as she went on. "Then as soon as I wake up I _still_ can't hold him because 'nobody's ever made a living sacrifice that young' and 'we have to make sure the seal will hold'! Bullshit! I'm a seal master; that seal is good because I say it is!"

Kushina was yelling now, but Mikoto wasn't surprised. Her friend had never bothered hiding her emotions. (Mikoto sometimes wondered if all Uzumaki had been like that, or if Kushina was simply Kushina.)

She hurt for her. Kushina had been talking about starting a family since Mikoto first met her. And Mikoto remembered how she felt when she'd had Itachi, how she'd treasured those first few moments with him more than anything. (She'd let Itachi hold Sasuke only in the face of disaster, and even then, only because she knew Itachi already loved his new brother dearly, and would die for him the same as her.)

"Kushina?" a woman said close to them. They both looked up at her.

Kushina grunted. "You're alive, Biwako."

Mikoto wasn't surprised that Lady Sarutobi had been assigned to Kushina tonight. Despite what many would've assumed, Tsunade had apparently been put on guard duty. For all her medical skills, the Slug Queen was a combat medic and woefully unqualified for what many medic ninjas referred to as "domestic medicine"—in short, stuff like pregnancy and childbirth.

"You and Naruto were the only ones targeted in the initial attack," said the older woman. She'd helped Minato save Naruto from the curse tag, though Kushina hadn't been around for that. "Naruto's already survived a curse tag, and he's survived the Nine-Tails' sealing just fine," she said, smiling.

Kushina looked relieved. Then annoyed again. "Can I hold my baby now?"

"In a moment, yes."

"Ugh, _thank-fuckin'-finally_."

* * *

Kakashi sat up.

His first thought was Obito.

_You're a failure in every way that matters._

Obito was right. Kakashi was trash that deserved to die.

Yet Kakashi was alive, and in a hospital. Glancing around, he saw there wasn't much room. He saw a curtain very close to his bed, separating him from the other patients he could hear. Hospitals usually tried not to cram ninjas together with too many others—it was one of their privileges over civilians. That he was stuck in what was probably a full room said a lot about how much damage the Nine-Tails had done. He saw a card propped up on the simple wooden chair next to him, stamped with what he recognized as the official seal of the General Secretary. He picked it up and read.

_Hey, Kakashi._

_I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you. (Not when you were attacked—I'm not much of a fighter. I mean, there, right now.) Admin keeps other ninjas from running around like chickens with their heads cut off, and right now we have so very many headless chickens running around. Just know that I love you very, very much and I'm thinking of you every moment I'm glaring at a genin for not moving fast enough. So all the time, really. I'll try to see you tomorrow, okay?_

_FYI, your mission to protect Kushina is complete. She survived. I hope you enjoy being an "uncle" as much as she'll enjoy being a mom._

_Don't be too hard yourself._

_Love you,_

_Mom_

Kakashi choked. _Don't be too hard on yourself_. Then again, _you're a failure_. It was too much. He wanted to feel both. He'd fucked up, now he was fucked up. He wanted his mother's lifesaver and his almost-brother's anchor together.

"Son?"

Kakashi started at his father's voice. Sakumo was standing next to the hospital bed, looking at him.

"I'm surprised you came," Kakashi said before he could stop himself.

"The Fire Shadow ordered me to ensure your safety against Leaf's attacker," father said.

"Oh."

Kakashi looked disappointed. Sakumo was in turn disappointed with his son. He thought he'd raised Kakashi to understand that duty came before your own wants. Sakumo had gone to his son as ordered by the highest ninja in the land, and Kakashi, of all people, should've understood that fealty was more admirable than any personal motivation. Not only that, but the Fire Shadow's orders had satisfied multiple duties at once—being a ninja and a father—making it the ideal action. It was how Sakumo strove to live.

Kakashi was rubbing the bandage where his teammate's eye had once been.

"Son?" Father asked, "are you alright?"

Not really. The earthly weight in his left socket was gone. An unearthly weight remained.

He rubbed harder, staring down at the card in his lap.

"Could you just..." Kakashi began. "Just go away?" Sakumo's presence was one weight too much. He couldn't bear it. They'd both let their friends die even as they succeeded in nothing that mattered. _I don't ever want to be like you but I already am._

Kakashi was a mess. He wanted to be okay. He wanted to hate himself. He didn't want to look up at his father. He wanted to see the hurt in his eyes. He just kept staring at Mother's card. Two years ago, he would've never wished to hurt his father. Now he wanted to know that father could feel something. Now he wanted to hate himself for wanting to hurt him.

Father was gone. Thank fuck for that.

He hoped it hurt. That was what trash deserved.

* * *

Rin woke up. Someone was poking her shoulder. Obito, of course. He'd done it often enough, on mornings after missions, back when they were fresh genin and she'd try squeezing in a few extra minutes of rest after an exhausting mission by "accidentally" overdoing a sleep technique the night before.

That'd been a long time ago.

They'd fallen asleep leaning against the wall, leaning against each other. She pulled away from him to look him over. His arm had completely healed and the hole in his chest was gone.

"I see you're okay," she said.

"I guess... you are too?" said Obito. He looked at her chest, where the hole in her clothing showed where the hole in her body had been. When he looked her in the eye again, he had a pained look on his face.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"I suppose self-loathing is an improvement," rumbled the Three-Tails.

"How would you know?" Rin said internally. It'd saved her life twice but that didn't mean she appreciated being forced to carve out her best friend's heart. "Can you feel loathing now?"

"Hatred turned the Great Sage's children against each other. It untamed the tailed beasts. The pain they wrought is burned into the world, into me. Into those cursed eyes. Into that living curse. Of course I feel it."

"Why do you care?" she asked, now genuinely curious. Did it care? Was that why the monster had helped?

"Little girl, I care only for a world where I can wander the sea without some human, consumed with wrath, looking at me and seeing only a weapon."

Well okay then.

Rin waved her hand, glowing green with chakra, over where Obito's injuries had been. He really was fine.

"We need new clothes," she said. Among other things. She was already making the list in her head. It was a handy distraction from the bigger problem of _what on earth were they supposed to do now?_ "Do you think it's safe to go back?" she asked Obito.

"What?" He wasn't sure what she was talking about.

"I don't know if I—the Three-Tails—actually killed the living curse thing," she said. "I kind of don't want to get stabbed again." If the look on his face was anything to go by, Rin was handling her injury a lot better than Obito was.

"You did not," said the Three-Tails. "It escaped."

"Is it close by?" she asked it.

The ocean sloshed for a moment, and she got the impression that it'd shrugged. "This is a separate dimension. All I can feel is you two and this dire plain of rocks."

She sighed. Oh, well. "Obito, we can't stay here forever."

Moments later, they warped into her room. Obito never let go of her hand, while Rin, fascinated, passed her limbs through everything within reach. As he'd told her, he could extend his dimensional phasing to anything he was touching, and he'd immediately phased them out as soon as he'd warped them, warily sensing for the living curse.

He closed his eyes, appeared to concentrate for a moment, then looked at her. "I can't sense it. But it'd felt like all the other Zetsus, so I'm not sure." His brow furrowed. "I can't feel _any_ Zetsus now."

"It ate them," the Three-Tails said. "And it's not here."

"How do you know?" Rin asked it.

"You think I couldn't feel it happening last night? How did you think I knew it was time to run?" it answered. "Madara birthed it with his death. A tyrant of his caliber would never let dying stop him from ruining the world."

Rin shared this with Obito. They were careful anyways.

Without the Zetsus powering the lights, they both used lighting techniques. Obito had never learned the modern Fire Lamp technique, and Madara had apparently been too old and reclusive to know it himself. Teaching Obito now was shamefully easy—with the Copy Wheel, he only needed to observe her signing it once—but it still felt comfortingly familiar to her. He wasn't embarrassingly behind anymore, but she was still reminded of her team.

Obito was more cautious than she'd ever seen him, never letting go of her hand, phasing them out at every dancing shadow his Copy Wheel caught. He claimed the Copy Wheel let him see chakra—not through walls or even thick mist like a Hyuuga could; it was just a very soft glow to him—but he was still scared beyond all reason.

Obito refused to say why. He didn't want her to know what the Black Zetsu had said. _I will_ always _be there._

While Obito was being paranoid, Rin was much calmer. She didn't trust the Three-Tails itself, but she did trust its fear of Madara and whatever curses he'd carried. If it said the living curse wasn't around, it wasn't around.

She let herself reminisce about her former team. Holding hands like this was common, despite Kakashi's (and apparently his father's) insistence that it was unprofessional. It was one of the more obvious signs of the sort of casual intimacy long-time comrades shared with each other. Rin was hard-pressed to think of any long-time three-man team who weren't seen, at some point, holding hands or casually leaning into each other. Touch was a sign of trust. But for painfully professional ninjas like Kakashi and Sakumo, physical contact was used mostly for violence, or in a violent context. Even after Obito's death, Kakashi had never seemed to shake that sad idea. He'd learned to act silly, but not touch freely. The old Kakashi had seen Obito's easy acceptance of physical contact as another sign that he was unfit to be a ninja. In the old days, the fastest way for a fight to start would be for Obito to thoughtlessly brush against Kakashi in cramped quarters.

Obito stopped moving. He looked at her nervously.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Rin, can I ask a favor?" he pleaded.

Rin glanced over his shoulder. There was an entire wall of eyes. Just Copy Wheels, in square, liquid-filled containers stacked floor to ceiling, covering an entire wall. It creeped her out.

The surgery table he was standing close to made it worse.

"Nope," she said. "Since you're done jumping at shadows, I'm going to eat, then I'm going to shower, then I'm getting clothes that _don't_ have a big hole in the chest." Then maybe later, when she wasn't starving and grimy, she'd hear him out.

A half hour later and sages be damned that wall of eyes was still creepy.

"You sure?" Obito asked nervously.

"I'll be sure once you tell me what this is about," Rin said firmly. This couldn't be good; Obito was dancing around the subject.

"I need you to..." he started and stopped. "Could you put Kakashi's eye back into me?"

She stared at him. "You took your eye back?" He hadn't mentioned that. There were a lot of details he'd skimmed over.

"Yeah."

"And you want me to transplant it back into you."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because." He swayed nervously from side to side. "Because—because it's all I have left of him. Of Kakashi."

She wasn't sure what to think about that. It was a sweet gesture, honestly, but also silly and more than a little creepy when she thought about it. So, like a metaphor for post-death Obito, really.

Obito wasn't sure what else to say. He wished he could explain it with something dramatic. Sworn revenge, or a reminder of what was important. But the truth was, he just missed Kakashi. He missed him so much he was going to shove a dead boy's eye into his face. The loss hurt so badly and it was the closest he could ever get to being with Kakashi again.

Rin nodded. "Get the eye," she said, "and I'll try to find what I need here." She eyed the room dubiously.

* * *

For Rin's part, it'd been a lot less stressful than last time, when Obito was half-crushed by a boulder and Kakashi was lying next to him on unstable ground. That'd been a classic battlefield surgery—hurried and brutal. It'd also been her first operation that didn't involve simply administering drugs or healing with chakra.

This time, Rin could indulge in a more formal kind of professionalism. Experience and circumstance were on her side now, and she found herself far more satisfied with the result.

"Well?" she asked when Obito sat up from the operating table. "Can you see fine?"

She was pretty sure he could see, but there was always a gap between what the healer knew about the patient's body, and what the patient themselves actually felt. (She'd also skipped any bandages or recovery time and had simply healed him directly. That was less of an option on the battlefield, where triage and combat demanded she preserve her chakra. Again, circumstance was on her side this time.)

He frowned. "It hurts." It felt like when his Kaleidoscope had first awakened. Before Rin could ask for any details he rushed to the closest mirror.

"Obito!" she cried out. "What's wrong?!"

He stared at his—Kakashi's—eye in the mirror. It was clearly still a Kaleidoscope. But instead of three hooks, there were six, overlapping each other to form a smooth inner circle and a sharply-ridged outer circle. It looked like two of his Kaleidoscope's pattern layered on top of each other.

It was his eye— _his own eye_.

_The Kaleidoscope is born through loss alone. The Eternal Kaleidoscope needs more: for the receiver to lose yet more and the giver to sacrifice everything for them. Its nativity is a single act that encapsulates both in one moment._

He was rubbing both his eyes now because he was crying. He was so confused. Memory told him Kakashi had been a jerk. But Rin told him that Kakashi had loved him, in a way, after he'd died, and his Kaleidoscope told him that Kakashi, ultimately, had freely given his greatest possession to him.

In the corner of the room, unnoticed, a White Zetsu melted deeper into the earth.

* * *

White Zetsu re-merged with Black Zetsu. White Zetsu could travel more easily than itself, and it could suppress its life force and chakra to match the surrounding environment. And since it carried no real will of its own, it leaked no killing intent.

It was much harder for Black Zetsu to hide itself—it held a power the White Zetsus didn't possess, and Black Zetsu wasn't sure if Obito could tell the difference already. Certainly the Three-Tails could sense it. Madara had had a great deal of trouble tracking down all of the tailed beasts back in the day, as some could apparently detect curses, including the Curse of Hatred he'd carried. Black Zetsu didn't doubt they could also detect living curses like itself.

Madara hadn't planned on Obito gaining the Eternal Kaleidoscope. He'd planned on Obito reclaiming his other Kaleidoscope, yes, but not for it to transform. The issue was not the Eternal Kaleidoscope itself, but what it could become.

The Samsara Eye. It was supposed to only be born from the merger of the Sage of Six Paths' two bloodlines. The cycle of reincarnation that brought the Sage's two warring children into conflict again and again would end with the victor devouring the flesh of the loser. If the victor was the true heir of the Sage of Six Paths—an Uchiha and wielder of the Eternal Kaleidoscope—they gained the Samsara Eye, a heavenly mandate granting ultimate power and dominion over the world.

Obito couldn't have it. Madara's own, original eyes had a seal preventing them from ever being used against him. Obito having his own Samsara Eye, outside of Madara's control, would make him a dangerous wildcard. The Samsara Eye could counter any curse, including the very Curse of Hatred that drove Obito towards the Eye of the Moon. And as a true owner of the Samsara, Obito could overpower the servant Madara had lent his original eyes to—borrowed eyes could never beat an original wielder.

If Black Zetsu couldn't destroy Obito's Eternal Kaleidoscope, it would have to gamble on the Samsara Eye simply never forming. The White Zetsus were very weak derivatives—copies of copies of copies—but Obito's body was special. Obito's plant half had been grown directly from some of Hashirama's original flesh, and combined with Madara's own blood and bone. Would the Eternal Kaleidoscope react as if Obito was a genuine merger of Indra and Asura's reincarnations, rather than the artifact he was?

* * *

Obito had disappeared into Authority again. It frustrated Rin. He'd been so open in those minutes after the surgery, telling her what his eye's new form meant, telling her how much he missed Kakashi and Leaf.

Then, he'd turned inward and left, saying only there was something he needed to do. She didn't have time to ask if it was something _he_ needed done, or Madara needed, before he warped.

Rin wasn't idle. She was preparing to leave. She'd been trapped under this sage-forsaken mountain for almost a year, and refused to stay any longer. She may not be able to go home—not with the Three-Tails flaring up under the stare of the Eternal Kaleidoscope and certainly not with the boy who was Leaf's most-wanted in her company—but she sure as hell wasn't going to spend the rest of her life here. For one, she hadn't seen the sage-damned sun in eleven months, and if she spent any longer without seeing it, she really would give in to the Three-Tails, just to blow out the whole mountain and stand in some sunlight.

(The cranes' homeland of Kushiro Marsh had always been a welcome break, but they never let her stay for more than a couple hours. Worse, time and weather differences meant it was always either overcast or twilight at best when she visited. Leaving Madara's mountain meant sun and freedom in a way nothing else could offer.)

She'd just finished packing for the two of them when Obito appeared again. "Well?" she asked, "are you done moping?"

"I wasn't moping," he said. "Madara's plans were kept in God's Authority. I needed to go over them."

She shoved one of the packs into Obito's arms. "You don't 'need' to review Madara's plans because you won't be _doing_ any of Madara's plans."

"I won't be. But that Black Zetsu..." he said, "I think that's the 'guide' Madara said he'd leave me, after he died."

She looked at him questioningly. "A guide?" she asked. _What else about the Moon's Eye did he never mention?_

"There're a lot of details I never shared. And a few Madara never did. I think I only know most of his plans, but Black Zetsu probably knows all of them," he said. "If I don't follow them, Black Zetsu will."

Rin nodded. "So we're going to sabotage them?"

"Yeah."

"Where do we need to go?"

"Hidden Rain."

That was... interesting. "As in, the country run by an isolationist tyrant? The same tyrant who repelled all of the Three Greats?"

"There's a rebellion growing there. It's led by the man Madara gave his eyes to."

"What?" she said flatly.

He shrugged. "Yeah, those eyes you saw him use were just spares from the medical center we were in. But the real set, his Samsara Eyes—"

"Wait, wait, wait," she said, holding her hand up to stop him. "Obito, what the fuck, you're my friend, and I'd fight by your side any day, but—'Samsara Eye'? We're ninjas, we don't run blindly into danger if we can help it. So help me. What _are_ all the details of Madara's plans?"

"I'll explain on the way," said Obito, clearly antsy. He was already reaching out to her, Authority swirling around him.

"Good," she said, then turned and walked in the other direction.

He blinked. "Where're you going?"

She looked at him over her shoulder. "We are _running_ to Hidden Rain. On foot. It rains there every day, every year. I'm not leaving this sage-forsaken cave just to warp right there and spend _another_ year without the sun. So we're running. In the daytime and everything."

"But if we take too long—"

"It's not _literally Madara_ ," she countered, pivoting to face him again. "You said it yourself: it's a guide. You're supposed to be the one actually doing all the big stuff. If it could do everything by itself, why bother training you?"

Obito winced. He didn't like the idea that Madara had only seen him as a tool. He'd been the best teacher Obito ever had.

* * *

Over the next week, word spread that Obito Uchiha, the worst ninja ever born to the Uchiha, had almost destroyed Hidden Leaf. Many blamed the entire Uchiha clan, because of course they did. Such people soon found the full weight of the military police crushing down on them. Fugaku made sure of it. The Uchiha _were_ the military police. They kept the other ninjas in line, and that included doling out punishments for baselessly slandering another clan.

It incensed Fugaku that so many ninjas could be so petty. Besides, how were the Uchiha supposed to know that Obito—stupid, talentless, softhearted Obito—, of all people, would betray Leaf? Honestly, if the Uchiha wanted to betray Hidden Leaf, it wouldn't have lasted the night. It would've been _levelled_ before sunrise.

* * *

While she was waiting in the Fire Shadow Tower, Kushina rattled off all the candidates for Fifth Fire Shadow in her head. Sakumo was more than capable but unpopular with the jounin. Tsunade was already head of Hidden Leaf's Medical Corps and the Senju clan, and had no interest in anything that would take her away from that. Jiraiya didn't trust himself with that kind of responsibility. Nobody knew what Orochimaru wanted, but he seemed to enjoy his freedom as head researcher and feared right-hand-man of the Fire Shadow. ("Most of the power with none of the accountability," she'd heard Jiraiya grumble about him once.)

It was petty, but Kushina wasn't exactly flattered. Nothing like knowing you were the fifth one down the list.

Or sixth? She glanced at the one other person with a serious shot. Dan Senju, husband of Tsunade Senju. One of the heroes of the Second Ninja World War.

Kushina was screwed. No way was Tsunade not going to throw her weight behind Dan.

He caught her glancing at him. "For the record, Kushina," he said, "if you become Fire Shadow, I would be honored to serve under you." Not a hint of mirth in his eye.

Shit dammit. Did he have to be so nice about it? This'd be so much easier if she could hate her rival.

"Yeah," she said. "Me too. I mean, I'd be honored to have you as Fire Shadow, too." She'd be sour about it, but it wasn't like Dan was a bad choice.

Dan had meant what he'd said. Was she the best possible leader for Hidden Leaf? Probably not—that'd be Tsunade. But he also knew that she loved the village and hated war—two qualities that went a long way as far as he was concerned.

True, Kushina was notorious for her attention span—sometimes focusing on a single task for hours, then spending other hours unable to focus on anything at all. She also could not. Sit. Still. (As her constant shifting in her chair and perpetually bouncing knee attested to. Dan had learned to ignore it, though that didn't stop the stream of people asking her to stop.) But he knew she'd make a fine Fire Shadow. Any of the candidates would, really. Dan was honestly pretty flattered to be held at the same level as them.

Kushina shifted, switching which knee she was bouncing. It was enough to rattle chairs several feet away. What had she been thinking about? Oh, yes. She was screwed.

Even without the Nine-Tails she could kick the ass of everyone not on the shortlist, as well as give a serious fight to anyone on it. But her actual combat record was thin. As a living sacrifice, she'd been Hidden Leaf's trump card. It was a good thing for the village that she'd never been needed that way, but it was bad for her, because she'd never been given the chance to shine on the battlefield like Minato had. Sure, she was famous now, thanks to being revealed as the lover of the popular Fourth Fire Shadow. (Yes, they'd been seen together for a while now. But there was a big difference between "being seen dating" and "raising a child together".) And she was respected, now that every ninja—not just jounin and above—finally knew she'd been keeping the Nine-Tails at bay for the past 18 years. But that meant diddly-squat if none of the voting jounin believed she could lead them as an army, and run them as a state.

She was also a foreigner, and with the infamous Uzumaki red hair, there was no hiding it. Kushina remembered hearing that Mito, the First Fire Shadow's wife, had also lost her shot at being Second Fire Shadow due to being a foreigner.

Fuck. This was so unfair. She'd spent fifteen years yelling at people that she'd be the next Fire Shadow for _nothing_.

"I'm surprised you came here without Naruto."

She blinked at Dan. "What?" She'd been grumbling to herself so hard she hadn't really heard him.

"Your kid's only a week old. I'm surprised you're willing to come here without him," Dan said.

"Oh. Yeah, the hospital won't let him out until they're a month old. I guess nobody's ever been made a living seal that young, so they wanna make sure he's super-okay before letting me take him home."

This was actually a welcome break for her. She'd barely left the hospital for a week now, only leaving for an hour once a day to keep up with politics. Specifically, the politics of her being the next Fire Shadow.

* * *

It'd taken them a week to reach a village Obito had actually heard of. If they'd just run directly to Hidden Rain, they would've already been there, especially if they'd kept the standard ninja pace of 400 miles a day. Instead, Rin took her time, stopping in every village they came across, not-so-subtly reveling in the look elders gave her when they saw the Nohara clan marks on her face, eagerly offering her services as a medic to them.

Rin still wore her forehead protector, Leaf symbol proudly displayed on it. Obito didn't have his anymore—Madara had either thrown it out or the Zetsu that rescued him had left it behind in the rubble—but he was still obviously not a civilian. It occurred to him, repeatedly, that he should get a mask, because while word still wouldn't have spread out here yet—perhaps it never would, given how poor the roads seemed in these parts of Marsh Country—Obito was still acutely aware that he was a rogue ninja now. He'd be on the first page of every bingo book by the end of the month.

To his great distress, Rin insisted on stopping by the former Hidden Marsh Village.

The invasion and genocide at the hands of Hidden Stone, Cloud, and Waterfall had left the Land of Marshes with no daimyo and no ninja village. Barely a tenth of its civilians had survived, and barely a twentieth of its ninjas.

There were just enough ninjas left these days—only a few thousand, compared to over a hundred thousand before the war—to keep it from completely imploding into something worse than the Warring Clans Era. Most were descendants of the few hundred or so survivors from the war. Rin didn't see any. She and Obito were the only ones walking on water.

Hidden Marsh Village was called South Marsh now. Built up from many small, manmade islands over the centuries, it housed a quarter million people in the heart of Marsh Country's famed inland marshes. It was the second-largest city in the country. It still felt very small.

Rin had been preparing herself, but she was still heartbroken. Marsh had been devastated, then abandoned by its neighbors. The promised reparations, signed into the Second Shadow Treaty, had simply stopped after a few years. Nobody outside Marsh cared.

"There it is," she said, grabbing Obito's hand.

"What?"

"The Shrine of the Crane Sage!" It was the first time she'd smiled all day.

The original shrine had been destroyed in the war. This was just a replica, rebuilt using the memories of the handful of survivors. It was the last of the original Hidden Marsh buildings rebuilt before the reparations stopped coming.

"You wait here," she told him, letting go of his hand to walk inside. Obito was grateful she let him wait outside. He wasn't a Nohara, and he had no history with Marsh Country. He knew vaguely about the Crane Sage, founder of the various Marsh Country clans, but it didn't really mean anything to him. This was Rin's thing. He didn't really _get_ it— his clan was great and powerful and undefeated—but he understood it was important to her.

It'd been sunny a while, but that seemed to have ended. He stood and idly watched the rain pass through himself. His right Kaleidoscope gave him seven and a half minutes of ethereality before wearing out, devolving to the normal Copy Wheel to recharge. That was an improvement over five minutes before. He knew now his eyes were stronger when together. His left, the Eternal Kaleidoscope, gave him fifteen minutes before reverting, and while he couldn't focus it on himself, he could focus it on the things around him, turning the raindrops themselves into ghosts and letting it all pass through him.

If his right Kaleidoscope let him personally phase and warp, then his left projected those abilities onto others, even from a distance. He'd already warped the head of a reed into his personal dimension. It occurred to him that he could rip someone in half that way. It obviously wasn't something he'd tried on himself when he'd only had his right Kaleidoscope. Had Kakashi figured out everything he could do with his Kaleidoscope? Probably. Kakashi _was_ a genius, while Obito needed the inherent knowledge his bloodline provided to understand it.

It was weird though. Since he'd left for Hidden Rain, his Kaleidoscope didn't show him anything. He still _saw_ fine with them, everything that made them a potent weapon still there. But the _vision_ was missing. He tried imagining one—he wanted to want something, wasn't that the same? But mostly—

"Hey Obito!" yelled Rin, grinning as she ran down the steps of the shrine. She stopped in front of him, then saw his expression.

"Are you okay?" she asked, concerned. Obito had been even more quiet than her on this detour, and definitely much quieter than he used to be before... Well, before Madara made him attack Leaf.

He seemed to seriously consider her question, like he wasn't really sure.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

She looked doubtful.

"Sorry, I'm just tired," he explained. "I'll feel better tomorrow."

Mostly, he just felt empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, 400 miles a day—thirteen-ish hours a day, running at about 30 miles per hour. I went with 30mph because, in the original series when Naruto and his team ran to Hidden Sand after Gaara was kidnapped, it took two days to get there. Using my arbitrary scaling for the official maps, I'd put the Hidden Sand and Leaf villages at about 1,000 miles apart, so two days works out to a rushed schedule of a little more than 16 hours per day at about 30mph.
> 
> That speed is only slightly faster than the current world record for fastest sprint (almost 28 miles per hour by Usain Bolt), but since they're ninja, they can keep that speed up indefinitely. It's not necessarily their _top_ speed, since pushing themselves further would cut into their chakra reserves, plus they'd need more breaks and be completely spent by the time they arrived anyways. I mean, how else do you explain ninjas, in the original series, chasing after opponents for hours or even days, then still being able to go all-out in combat? (The downside of this is anytime you have to retreat. Even if you can run on empty as long as you need to, you still can't refill your reserves unless you drastically slow down or stop completely.)
> 
> For the record, the Land of Marshes doesn't exist in the original series. But the peninsula country where the Mountains' Graveyard (where Madara trained Obito and Obito kept Sasuke after his fight with Itachi) is located was unnamed, so I felt I had free license to fill in its backstory.


	9. Alter the Course: Awful Might

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Father's Day. Here's Madara committing genocide.

* * *

He raised his hand high.

This was it. This was everything he'd been striving for. Madara may have lost his last battle with Hashirama, but in the end he was the true victor. The power of the Sage of Six Paths was his. With a gesture, he would alter the course of history. He would remake the world.

From his first battle as a child, Madara had known he was destined for greatness. He still remembered the day he got his Kaleidoscope—not the trauma, _the vision_. He'd always known what he wanted, now his eyes showed him a vision where he finally got it.

The world was filled with weaklings and parasites trying to pull him down. But he would destroy everything. And in the ruins, he could finally stand tall. He would bring a world where the greatest were no longer weighed down by the least.

But.

His brother died. The loss gained him the Eternal Kaleidoscope—the summit of Uchiha might—and for the first time he wondered if the price was too high. For a time, he forced the thought aside, dominating half of what would one day be called the Land of Fire and propelling the Uchiha to heights not seen since the Imperial Era ended.

But.

He grew _tired_. His wife grew tired. His sister-in-law grew tired. They were all tired of watching their children die. His ambition faded for a time. He signed a treaty with his greatest enemy, Hashirama Senju. He even tried believing in the Senju's "Will of Fire" philosophy.

He had been deceived. It was a trick, a cunning ploy by Hashirama to take advantage of a man in mourning and convince him to give up everything.

Hashirama had even said Madara could be a sage like himself, if he opened up his heart. "The world is bigger than any of us. You just need to find room to let it in," he'd said. "That's what being a sage is all about."

It was a lie—a lie greater than any Madara had ever told with Tsukuyomi. There was _nothing_ greater than the self.

He'd almost fallen for it. But ultimately, Madara refused to debase himself. He rebelled against the Senju's lies, and when his own clan refused to side with him, he raised an army in the Land of Rice. He, along with the few Uchiha who still saw the truth, fought the Senju.

He lost. But he kept his integrity, unlike Hashirama, who compromised himself with that vile sage power of his. And in return he gained something far greater: the Samsara Eye. A divine power beyond even the Eternal Kaleidoscope.

Madara became the god he knew he was destined to be.

Beneath him, partly hidden by clouds, lay the Land of Whirlpools, home of the Uzumaki clan. It was an island, a little more than 100 miles long and 50 miles wide. His senses told him there were over a million souls on it.

In part, destroying the Land of Whirlpools was strategic, to deny the Senju their most powerful ally. It was also revenge. His wife had been one of the few Uchiha to stand with him at the Valley of the End, and in that last battle, Mito Uzumaki had killed her.

After tonight, there would be no Uzumakis left. With awful might, he would exact terrifying punishment against those who'd wronged him. With awful might, he would alter the course of history.

His hand was raised high and he brought it crashing down.

And he said: "Divine Subjugation."

He watched the crater form beneath his hand, heard the thunder reach his ears moments later. The crater grew, stripping the island down to its bedrock and sweeping its topsoil into the sea. He felt hundreds of thousands of people die in the shockwave's widening circle.

Madara understood. _This is the pinnacle of being. This is the greatest power of all. This is what being a god means._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first flashback chapter. Next chapter will resume where chapter eight left off, but there'll be others like this one, sprinkled throughout the story at relevant points, all titled with "Alter the Course".
> 
>  _Shinra Tensei_ literally means "Heavenly Subjugation of the Omnipresent God", which is a real mouthful. I just went with "Divine Subjugation".
> 
> I always thought it was odd how the Uzumaki were supposedly incredibly strong, but were mysteriously destroyed anyways. Or maybe Madara did it! Mystery solved. And yes, why he didn't go on to level all the other hidden villages does get addressed in a later chapter.


	10. A Violent Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hidan's religion may not have any pamphlet's, and the pilgrimage is brutal, but it does have _great_ healthcare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I scaled Hidan's abilities way up. Despite Kishimoto's attempt to sell us on how threatening Hidan was, his gimmick was, while horrifying, honestly pretty weak. (It only works when he can spend the entire battle standing in one spot on solid ground, he needs to harvest his enemy's blood before he can activate his power, and it's worthless against any ninja who can move fast enough, or knows a non-lethal technique, to push him off the seal. It's painfully limited.)

* * *

Hidan hated other ninja because they were fucking _liars_.

All ninjas enjoyed violence. It was what they were trained for. If they didn't like violence, didn't bask in their enemy's pain and flourish in fields of death, they didn't stay a ninja. But they still insisted on lying about it. They'd piss away time blathering about principles or justice or some bullshit like that, but at the end of the day, they were _proud_ of how good they were at hurting people. They traded their whole reputation on it!

Hidan was the most honest man he knew. He didn't cite honor or horseshit philosophy or self-indulgent so-called justice as an excuse to hurt and kill people. He was proud of his skill, and like all true masters he understood that expression of a skill was reason enough to pursue it.

Violence was an answer that needed no question, and had no question it couldn't answer. It was always true.

* * *

Rin stuck around for a second damn week in South Marsh. She spent her time healing others and chatting with elders about the time before the war. Obito had panicked when he sensed ninjas approaching, but she stayed put even after he told her. It turned out they only wanted to know if she was really a Nohara.

Obito finally bought a mask, too scared of being recognized. He was more than capable of keeping an illusion up around himself at all times. But it'd only take one Uchiha or Hyuuga sent to investigate for that to fail. Plus, the option of not maintaining a perpetual illusion would be nice.

The mask was custom-made with the help of a craftswoman he found in town. It featured three large tomoe, two of them forming holes for his eyes with a third over his forehead, and a thin black circle connecting them, like a mature Copy Wheel, but it was pure white instead of red. He added seals on the inside to change the color of his eyes to white when he wore it. He couldn't hide the Kaleidoscope pattern—that form was too powerful to be completely hidden—but without the iconic red most people would never guess they were Copy Wheels. Rin told him it was silly and flashy and he looked like a ghost with it on, but he just shrugged. It wasn't subtle, but Rin already attracted loads of attention. He just didn't want anybody to recognize him.

He'd cut his hair, too. He'd had a barber do it, watching closely with his Copy Wheel on the shop's mirror so he could flawlessly do it himself after that. Rin approvingly told him he didn't look like a Madara clone anymore. Just Obito.

(He wasn't concerned with either the craftswoman or barber remembering his face. The entire experience would be a bit fuzzy for them, thanks to the illusion Obito kept up. It calmed them into not asking too many questions, and replaced his own face with an indistinct blur in their eyes. He'd paid them double because of that. It was one thing to disguise himself from a crowd of strangers, but another to mislead somebody he was working with.)

Obito followed when the ninjas who'd visited Rin earlier asked her to accompany them. Again, she brushed off his fretting, this time saying the Three-Tails didn't sense any hatred. The ninjas simply took her to their clan leader, a woman in her mid-forties just barely old enough to remember the genocide. Rin spent a long time talking with her. The other ninja kept trying to talk to him while he waited, so he just warped away.

When she was finally ready to leave, she cupped her hands and whistled loudly for him.

"I'm not a dog," he said, appearing anyways, startling the clan head. Rin shrugged, smirked, and reached up to poke his mask. Her hand passed through him.

"Yeah," she said. "You're more like a ghost."

* * *

Rin was trying to distract herself with a magazine. They were leaving tomorrow. She'd gotten her dream (sort of) of seeing her clan's homeland. Now she needed to help save the world. Now she needed to reach Hidden Rain with Obito.

She was terrified. To reach Rain by land meant crossing the Land of Waterfalls.

Hidden Cloud and Hidden Stone had treated Marsh Country as a military front, a point of strategic interest in the First World War. They'd been hostile and cruel towards Marsh's people. But it was Hidden Waterfall that'd slaughtered the inhabitants, harvesting every human they could to power their forbidden techniques.

Waterfall had never been punished. They'd never apologized, and never paid more than a sliver of a fraction of what they owed to the survivors. They'd spent the war as monsters, and never stopped. Rumors said they still practiced forbidden techniques, capturing and sacrificing every enemy ninja who crossed their borders.

Obito and her could always go further south, and cross the Land of Fire into Rain. But then Obito would be terrified.

"Obito?" she asked when he appeared again. Sometimes he spent whole afternoons in Authority. Whenever she asked him why, he'd always say he was just thinking.

"Yeah?" he responded.

"Are you willing to reach Rain through Fire?"

She assumed he was thinking about it. He rarely took off the mask since he'd gotten it.

"I'd rather not."

"Okay. I really don't want to go through Waterfall," she said. "I know I said I wanted to walk, but could you just warp us to Grass first?"

He nodded. He was grateful she didn't ask where he'd been this time. He was honestly in sort of a good mood right now, and he was afraid of explaining that he didn't _like_ being here anymore. There were too many people. He was caught between instinctively, routinely stretching out his senses and how utterly _tiring_ it was feeling 250,000 lives around him, how the sheer number of them overwhelmed all that made them unique, until they just felt like blank Zetsus, and how every alarm went off in his head when they did. In his worst moments, when it grew so bad he had to retreat into his dimension, he worried that if Rin were to try talking to him right then, she'd feel like a Zetsu, too.

"Thanks," she said. It was easier to read her magazine now that she wasn't fretting anymore. They were leaving tomorrow, heading straight for Hidden Rain. This was the last major city before leaving Marsh Country's borders, so this was the only place she'd be able to buy something like this for some time.

South Marsh was an odd mishmash of the cosmopolitan and the quaint. Despite being the second-largest city in Marsh Country, it still wasn't electrified. There were a few gas lamps in the densest parts of the city, but here on the outskirts Rin stood out in the twilight, reading her magazine by Fire Lamp technique on a bench. The magazine itself had been bought from a small store. It'd had magazines, glossy in wire racks, but they were a month out-of-date, and had only a couple copies of any given issue. Rin had watched as a group of teens, a little younger than herself, all pooled their money to buy one, which they eagerly shared. Watching them, Rin had realized how much she wanted to go home. Even when she couldn't.

"If life gives you lemons, what do you do?" she read aloud from her magazine.

"Make lemonade, of course," he said. He was suppressing his two years of training with Madara, forcing himself not to routinely sense everything. It was a bit like trying not to take a deep breath after emerging from a pool. He was in a good mood and he didn't want to ruin it with his paranoia. "What else are you gonna do?" He moved next to her. "Is this a personality quiz? Those things never get me right."

"That's because you lie and pick the answers that make you look good." She glanced at him. "I'll put you down for 'Throw them out and complain'."

He scowled at her, though she couldn't see it through the mask. "I would not."

She wanted to remind him he already had. For his eleventh birthday, Kakashi had gotten Obito a token gift — a replica of the Fire Shadow's official stamp (minus the sealing techniques that made the real one unique, of course). Obito, assuming Kakashi was mocking his dream of being Fire Shadow, had thrown it out, and loudly complained to Rin about it until she made him dig it out of the trash and thank Kakashi.

But Kakashi was still too raw a loss for both of them. She stuffed the magazine into her pack. She wasn't in the mood for it anymore.

* * *

It was night. Rin couldn't sleep and Obito didn't need to. They were quietly sitting on the edge of a bridge, sometimes staring at the sky, sometimes staring at the marsh several feet below them.

"I'm gonna leave. I don't like being out in the open," said Obito. _I don't like feeling Zetsus everywhere and looking at you and seeing your death._ His own dimension was the only place he felt safe enough to turn off his Kaleidoscope.

Rin kept looking at the stars. "I'm gonna stay. I like it out here."

"You should—"

"I'll be _fine_ , Obito," she insisted, now turning to look at him. "We've been here for two weeks and nothing's happened. I'm a special jounin and I've been on more field missions than you have."

Obito nodded, slowly, and left.

The Three-Tails roared and it was like a glacier splitting in half. It was screaming like the night the living curse attacked. _Something bad's coming_.

"Shut up and tell me wherever it is," she said to the Three-Tails.

"No," it said, "I've had quite enough of you putting us in danger."

Rin was almost used to it. Its refusal hit her less like a tsunami and more like a rough patch of whitewater. She was getting better at swimming against the current.

"Too bad. It's my body and you're just along for the ride," she told it. She leapt to the top of the closest building.

The farthest edge of the city was burning.

* * *

It was the fastest Rin had ever run. She reached the already-dying flames and saw someone standing in the center of a pile of corpses.

It was a man, wearing black pants paired with a loose, open shirt, and holding a red, three-pronged scythe. He had gray hair, though he looked relatively young—maybe only a decade older than Rin.

He faced her as soon as she arrived. Killing intent cut into her. He projected it so casually, so easily, that Rin instinctively stepped back. It wasn't how strong it was, just the speed with which the man saw her and decided he wanted her dead.

Rin sent out five water clones, four pulling injured civilians away, one immediately charging the enemy. (Clones, mercifully, couldn't feel killing intent. They weren't even alive in the first place.) Rin herself stood at the ready. She was waiting to see how her clone fared.

"So this city _does_ have ninjas," the man said as her clone attacked. "Thank fuck for that. I know some of the other priests disagree with me," he continued, boredly dodging the water clone's attacks, casually signing a fireball technique in between blocking her kunai with his scythe's staff. "But I really do think Jashin prefers _quality_ sacrifices."

The fireball hit a Water Fang Bullet with enough power to turn it to steam and continue on to hit Rin's clone. "Hard-earned deaths gotta be more fuckin' valuable than _these_ ," he said, gesturing to the dozen or so corpses around him, "cheap-ass kills."

Rin was worried. The man had signed with only one hand, and spaced out the signs—make one sign, swing his scythe, make another—so he could still fight. She didn't even know you could _do_ that.

"Hey!" the man whipped his head around, looking at an injured woman one of Rin's clones was approaching. Rin felt the killing intent disappear. The civilian gasped and cringed, and she knew the woman was now feeling it. Rin was doubly worried now, because killing intent was always _personal_ ; it took a real emotional investment in the violent death of your target. It shouldn't be possible to snap it around that casually.

The man flung his scythe at the woman. It was still connected to him by a thick, metallic rope that ran up his right sleeve. (It was probably a storage seal.) Rin charged at him as soon at the weapon was out of his hand while her clone dashed forward to intercept the blow.

This man was attacking South Marsh. He was another monster, taking another part of her heritage.

Her clone blocked the hit, stumbling back from the sheer force. (He'd barely flicked his own arm to throw. The cord connecting him to the scythe moved it for him. He was probably controlling it with his chakra.) It was destroyed anyways with a follow-up fire technique, her clone taking the blow for the civilian.

Before Rin had closed the distance, she'd run into his cord, which suddenly had a lot more slack—enough to twist and bend to block any thrown kunai and keep her from getting closer. She saw she wouldn't reach him in time to take advantage of his weaponless state. She signed to body swap with a water clone even as he pulled his scythe back into his hands and his killing intent snapped back to her.

He dashed forward to cut her down. It was very close. Rin wasn't the fastest signer, but she swapped just before he swung his scythe into her. His scythe sliced into her clone and it burst into water.

She ran forward, approaching from his side and signing for a Water Prison made from the water her clone had left, but, again with one hand, he signed a fire technique and evaporated the water. She kept running forward anyways, closing the distance as much as she could. Close combat wasn't her forte, but a scythe would be awkward to use within punching range.

The scythe's cord came at her. She sliced at it with her chakra scalpel, but couldn't cut it; it actively repelled her chakra. (It either had seals or it was just incredibly dense with chakra.) She did manage to knock it away, and she fended it off and forced her way forward.

The man had already been smiling but his smile grew wider as she fought him.

"The best sacrifices always fight back," he said. He caught the kunai she was thrusting at his face in between the prongs of his scythe and swept the staff outwards, knocking her off her feet. Even as she fell, she signed an illusion, rolling left while the illusion made him think she'd rolled right. The scythe's head came down with her, cutting into the ground.

The cord moved the scythe for him, pulling it back up faster than any arm could. While the scythe lifted back into his left hand, with his right he blurred through signs and spat a stream of fire at the illusion-Rin.

This was the awkward part. Constant small illusions, like what she'd just done, could give her an edge in combat. They also took effort to maintain. It was massively distracting, splitting her attention between keeping the illusion up while still fighting normally. It could easily slow her down enough to negate any advantage.

She still managed to slam a kunai into his jugular. He turned and blinked at her. Pain—real pain, not illusory pain—could often break illusions.

"Huh," he said. "You're actually half-decent. Looks like I have to get serious."

Rin tried to leap back from the unknown. He should be dying and unable to talk, given the wound in his neck. Not standing and speaking.

He was too fast. Rin was unprepared—she was only a special jounin, and close combat and sheer speed had never been her thing. The scythe's cord wrapped itself around her feet, holding her in place, even as he swung the scythe into her sideways.

A clone swapped with her. It'd barely been fast enough. Rin felt her arm bleeding.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw armed civilians approaching them. "Stay back! You can't handle him!" she yelled at them.

"Wow, you're _mean_ ," the man complained.

Rin wasn't sure if he meant her implying the city's defenders were weak or denying him more kills.

"Who are you? Why are you doing this?" she demanded. "What do you want?!"

"I'm Hidan," he said, seemingly pleased to be introducing himself. "Just a faithful priest of Jashin and a simple pilgrim, preaching the word of death to the living."

"You're doing this for a cult?!" she shouted.

"We are not a fucking cult!" he objected. "Jashin is real!" He looked thoughtful for a moment. "The god of death is real. Violence is his worship. And ninjas are pilgrims of death in a world of the living."

Rin thought that sounded exactly like something a cult would say.

"You've been clever so far," Hidan said, letting go of his scythe and leaning it against his chest, "but death still comes for us all." He put his hands together in a mockery of prayer.

Rin and the last two of her clones rushed him in that moment. They hit him all at once. The two clones drove kunai between his ribs and deep into his right eye, while the real Rin hit him with Paralyzing Current. It was a precaution, since he seemed to handle normally lethal injuries just fine. This way, the other two could attack him until he really did die, while he remained helpless.

"Well I guess that answers _that_ question," said Hidan, clearly unconcerned. He hadn't even bothered trying to slow her down with his cord. "Guess I can't be paralyzed. By the way, thanks for the blood," he said, nodding towards the cut in her shoulder.

Hidan didn't attack. Instead, a seal spread out around his feet. His skin changed color, turning pitch black, with white tattoos forming a crude skeleton across his body.

"Curse Seal: Death's Blood Possession"

Rin felt electricity coursing through her. _What?_

Her upper right side and her right eye hurt like somebody had just jammed kunai into them.

"Aw, it was too late for you to stab yourself," Hidan said, sounding very disappointed. "But feel free to keep wiggling those fucking kunai around in me."

Rin released the current (she could still control her chakra, even paralyzed), and leapt backwards. Hidan put his hands on his scythe, and pivoted it _into his own side_.

_What?!_

Rin's clones burst into water and she landed on the ground. She was bleeding. Something had ripped into her left side, and it hurt like hell.

"Ugh, fuck," she grunted, signing an illusion to hide the pain from herself. She stood up. With her right hand, she held a kunai at the ready, and with her left she pressed healing chakra into her wound.

"You know, I'm feeling real generous tonight," Hidan said. "So how about I show you fuckers the next stage? Everyone should have the honor of being consumed by Jashin!"

Again he pressed his hands together. "Curse Seal: Death's Controlling Doom."

The seal around his feet lifted up from the ground like an oily snake, bleeding red haze. It _writhed_ , like it was alive. It grew, encompassing the small island they were on, the marshy water around it, and the buildings across from that. Like the smaller one, it formed a circle, containing a perfect triangle with points touching the inside edges.

"Agh, fuck, this hurts," he whined, picking the kunai out of his body.

Rin shuddered at the pain she felt, but quickly built up the numbing illusion. Taking away the pain didn't improve her chances much. She could be distracted by the pain or distracted with maintaining her own illusion.

"Is that another living curse?" she asked the Three-Tails. It'd been mercifully quiet during the actual fight—it wasn't stupid enough to try and bother her in combat, thank the sages— though when she listened she could still hear the storm in her head.

"The man himself is a living curse. What you see is merely an expansion of what he already is," it answered.

That wasn't a very helpful answer, but then again, it hadn't been an especially helpful question.

Now she felt a second killing intent, coming from the seal itself, and the feeling was soon joined by growing horror at what she was facing.

"Jashin is hungry," declared Hidan. "And it looks like I'm absolutely fucking right. Death really does prefer quality. None of the poor shits from before were enough."

Obito appeared at her side. Hidan shot a fireball at them. It passed through them.

"He's standing on a curse seal, so if he's hurt, so am I," she said in a single breath. Obito nodded.

Quietly, she asked him, "Is there anything you can do?"

"I don't know," he answered, speaking via illusion.

Rin, unfortunately, couldn't do two illusions at once and had to talk normally. "Can't you warp the scythe out of his hands and move him off the seal?"

"I can't warp anything without phasing us back in," he said. "Even with two Kaleidoscopes."

Well that sucked. Untouchability combined with an unstoppable interdimensional attack sounded really nice at the moment.

"I don't know how you're still standing just after body flickering. And was that fireball-passing-through thing an illusion? That's a nice skill," said Hidan, dropping his scythe. Then he pulled a short rod out of another storage seal in his sleeve and flicked it, tripling its length with two spikes popping out of both ends.

Hidan narrowed his eyes. The killing intents spread to both Obito and Rin. "You know what else is nice? _You're standing inside my seal_."

Hidan stabbed himself through the femur. Rin screamed as a hole appeared through her right thigh, but the pain was swiftly numbed by an illusion from Obito. No longer distracted by the pain, she heard screams from nearby. How many civilians were inside the circle?

Hidan stared at them. Probably because Obito was totally silent and motionless. "Are you a damned ghost?" the man asked.

Obito shrugged. "I guess you never thought you'd meet another unkillable ninja," he said blandly. Getting stabbed like that actually did hurt, though that was being smothered by the same illusion he was using on Rin. But his right half was still plant, and getting stabbed through there wasn't that big of a deal. (Especially now that he knew he could survive getting his heart ripped out.)

"We'll see about that," said Hidan, smirking. He signed.

"Fire Release: Funeral Pyre."

Hidan was on fire and they were all burning.

Obito tried to call out to Rin, but the sheer intensity of the flames overwhelmed him, burning him so fast he could only focus on staying alive.

The fire grew and spread past the seal.

"Oh yeah, that's the good shit!" said Hidan. He was still standing and speaking, little more than a skeleton with embers in his ribcage. "But I'm just getting started!"

He clasped his bony hands together. The seal grew even more, encompassing more of the city.

"Curse Seal: Consumption Rebirth."

Hidan's body grew back. People outside of the fire were screaming and Rin knew he was sacrificing them to rebuild his body. Then Hidan's body kept burning, and he endlessly pulled lives away to keep healing.

Obito couldn't process anything. He didn't want to use Izanagi, so he was pouring everything he had into growing his own body back. He was rapidly draining his reserves, and he might have to use Izanagi once he was out anyways. He didn't even notice the spike in chakra right next to him.

Rin was calling the Three-Tails, asking for power. Its sea smothered the fire. Its current pulled her down and she couldn't hear any more screams or feel any more pain.

Hidan felt the girl's chakra grow, so strong even a non-sensor like him could feel it, and he only grew more excited. Then the most incredible killing intent slammed into him. He almost staggered. It made him laugh, because this was pure joy.

"Who better to sacrifice to Jashin than one who seeks to kill?" he said. Hidan had never felt this much killing intent. He'd almost drowned for a moment, but it was magnificent, like swimming in blood. _This_ was why he'd become a ninja. "So come at me!" he said, spreading his arms in welcome.

Rin charged Hidan, three tails of chakra growing out of her. She slammed into him and more people screamed. Rin snarled as the monster's chakra hurt both of them. Obito drained his reserves faster.

She bulldozed Hidan off his own seal. It moved to follow him, but the water around Rin rose up to the seal's level and tailed beast chakra poured into it, smothering the seal with a foreign power.

When they were outside the city, Rin slammed him into the water with one hand, trapping him in a Water Prison. She reared her head back and forced more power than she'd ever felt into a single point just above her. She tilted her head back down, the solid sphere of chakra lowering with her face, and fired.

Hidan was incinerated. There was no tsunami from the explosion as the water around her simply vaporized.

Rin walked to the closest island and collapsed.

* * *

It took a while for Obito to heal and even longer for Rin to wake up.

"Rin?"

Rin opened her eyes. She was sore all over. "Obito?"

"Are you okay?"

She frowned. "How many died?" She assumed Obito had a rough idea, just from how many fewer lives he sensed.

He hesitated. "Over a thousand."

Rin closed her eyes again. She'd only been in South Marsh for two weeks, but it was a part of her heritage. This land was something precious to her.

Hadn't everyone suffered enough?

"When it rains, it pours," she mumbled to herself.

* * *

Rin healed as many as she could after the attack. Which is to say, she didn't heal nearly enough. Obito rebuilt as many burnt-out buildings as he could with wood release.

Rin had to take breaks. Healing was slow and careful going, interacting with patients was draining, and her chakra reserves had never been particularly large. She felt exhausted in every possible way. It'd been a long time since she felt like that. If all she needed was more chakra, if she weren't so burnt-out, she'd be tempted to call up the Three-Tails for more chakra. But only tempted. She remembered the burning feeling of the Three-Tails healing her the night Black Zetsu attacked, and the feeling of her own skin dissolving into the monster's chakra as it coated her last night. Her skin was still raw from that. She didn't trust its chakra to heal.

"Why did you let me go last night?" she asked the Three-Tails during her first break. "You could've taken over."

"You think your friend would've left me alone? He would've chased me to the edges of the world, either to save you or capture me for the Moon's Eye. And if not him, then Hidden Mist, who believe they 'own' me," it rumbled. "You are the least awful human out of all of them."

"Thanks?" she said. It wasn't much of a compliment. "I guess I don't have to ask your opinion about humans."

"All humans are vile," it said.

"That's a bit much," she said defensively.

"The killing intent flowing through you last night? It wasn't mine. It was all yours."

Rin frowned at that.

"All humans are vile, and inside every one of them is Hidan," it continued.

"That's not true!" she shouted back at it.

"Ha!" it rumbled like a thunderstorm. "I have been on this earth for 5,700 years. Each generation of humans has treated me the same. They beat plowshares into swords and turn fishing boats into warships. And every one of them— yes, including you—looks at me, at the sea itself given form, and sees me not as a great well of life, but a means of violence and domination."

Rin didn't know what to say. It was a harsher take on humanity than she'd heard before, but it didn't sting that much. Because...

Because she saw the Three-Tails as a tool and a burden, not a living, worldly being. She sighed. It was right.

"I'm sorry," she apologized. It didn't answer back.

Rin went back to work. She was a ninja. Even self-assigned, this was still a mission to her.

Obito disappeared shortly after her talk with the Three-Tails. He didn't know how to heal. He reappeared when she sat down for another break.

"There are others like Hidan," Obito said.

Rin froze, then slowly turned to face him, staring at him intensely. "Others?"

"I mean, in general. I visited Madara's archives. The 'Cult of Jashin' has been around for a while."

"Are they all immortal?"

"No, that's a, uh, resource-intensive process," he said awkwardly.

"What sort of process?" she said tersely.

"Jashin demands—"

" _Jashin isn't real_ ," she bit out. She refused to believe a god that evil existed.

He paused at that. "A cult member can obtain immortality by killing 4,000 people," he finally said.

She just stared at him.

"Only the most devout priests ever go on such a, uh, 'pilgrimage' as they call it. They're very rare. Even making just a small army of immortals like that would cost too many people; they'd be noticed and stopped before they finished."

"How often have they needed to be stopped?"

"Every few decades another one wanders out of the Land of Steam."

Rin didn't know much about Steam Country, other than it was famous for its many hot springs and geysers.

"Can they be stopped without..." Rin choked, "without a tailed beast?"

"They can't be killed, but they can be imprisoned. If they stop killing, Jash—the immortality eventually fades and they die normally."

Rin nodded. "Thanks."

"Rin?" asked Obito, concerned. Under his mask, he was frowning. He had a suspicion... Had Rin been channeling killing intent last night? It was the first time he ever thought she had. He could only guess—he'd been occupied with healing himself, and it was hard, even for a sensor like him, to detect killing intent that wasn't aimed at him— but he didn't like the idea. Rin was willing and more than able to use violence if she felt she needed to. But she'd never been _driven_ by the need to brutalize her enemy.

"It's fine, I'm not gonna go running off to slaughter them, if that's what you're asking," Rin said, guessing his worries. "But if I see an opportunity, _I'm taking every damned one of them down_. They're no different than Waterfall."

Obito was all right with that. They were unlikely to run into any Jashin cultists again. He didn't like it when Rin lost control to the Three-Tails, and he absolutely knew she'd use it on them.

* * *

It was another night. Rin still couldn't sleep and Obito still didn't need to. They vigilantly patrolled the city.

The Three-Tails' voice snapped, like a frozen lake with too much weight on it. "Hidan is back."

" _What?!_ "

Obito had sensed Hidan, too, and warped her to him. Rin couldn't see like Obito could in the dark, and made a Fire Lamp. (Last night, she'd been surrounded by the handful of gas lamps in the densest part of the city.)

Hidan strode out of the marsh, walking on water, and into the light.

"All right you fucking motherfuckers, I'm absolutely _pissed_. Do you know what I had to promise Jashin to get him to bring me back? I have to make the Holy Pilgrimage all over again! Do you have any fucking idea what I have to do to rack up that many kills? I can't take my time to savor the unique deaths anymore—no fun at all!" He paused, then smirked. "Not that I really mind the killing."

Hidan was already coated in black and highlighted in white.

"Don't! The curse seal!" the Three-Tails boomed, but before Rin could say anything, Obito sucked the arm holding Hidan's scythe into Authority.

Both Obito and Rin fell to their knees in pain. Both their right arms were missing.

"Ah-ah-ah, kids," gloated Hidan. "I don't know what that technique was, but I do know that you are _fucked_."

The curse seal rose up around them from the water.

* * *

Rin was on her hand and knees in pain. She blinked, and she saw craggy tide pools under her hand. She looked up and saw the Three-Tails.

Rin's upper left arm carried the Three-Tails' seal. It was what Madara called a "Two-Element Seal," and it was nothing more than a yin-yang symbol, circled by some writing. It felt like blood was gushing from it. But when she looked at the ground beneath her, it was stained with ink and not blood.

"Do you want him dead?" the Three-Tails rumbled.

Rin kept staring at the blackening rock by her hand. "He can't be killed," she mumbled. "And it won't bring anyone back."

"I can bring destruction to those who deserve it. So I'm offering you. Give yourself to me _completely_. You can end his cruelty and violence, if you let me." Finished, the Three-Tails quietly stared at her with its one open eye.

After a long silence, she looked up at it. "I want him stopped. _For good_ ," she said, face grim.

The tide rose. It rose and kept rising, the dock floating higher and higher, until the ocean was taller than even the Three-Tail's head. Rin let the tide push her past the chain seal towards the beast. Both its eyes were open and burning red. It clapped its paws together, crushing her between them.

All she felt was ocean.

* * *

Obito saw Rin dive underwater. Her chakra—no, the monster's—spiked, then kept going up and up and up.

Obito was worried. This was what the Nine-Tails had felt like. (It wasn't quite as much chakra, technically. It was like comparing a large sea to the entire ocean. One was definitely bigger, but both were so far out of scale with mere humans that it didn't matter.) Had she given herself to the monster completely?

The water swelled up beneath them, and a massive pair of jaws crashed into Hidan from below.

Hidan leapt out of reach and signed. Obito immediately warped out of the seal's range, recognizing the handsigns.

"Funeral Pyre."

Hidan caught fire but nothing else happened. The Three-Tailed Turtle remained untouched, massive and impervious. It roared and charged Hidan.

"YOU THINK YOU CAN SET FIRE TO THE SEA?" it roared in a horrible mix of Rin and the monster's voices.

Hidan dashed out of reach, laughing, body rapidly reducing to ash-covered bones. It made him look even more like death. He signed and pointed at the monster. "Lightning Release: Fire Starter!" he crowed.

Lightning struck the Three-Tails. Small tongues of flame sprang up where it hit, but they were quickly smothered by the water chakra that constantly leaked from monster's shell. It roared in pain and fired a ball of solid water chakra at Hidan.

He dodged it easily. The Three-Tails dove underwater. Hidan landed on the water, pyre extinguishing, and held his hand before his chest, praying with one hand.

"Curse Seal: Consumption Rebirth," Hidan said. His body healed in a moment. He grimaced. "I know, I know, Jashin. I owe you four-thousand _and one_ sacrifices now."

The water swelled up around him. He leapt as high as he could into the air, his hands already done signing another Fire Starter. The swell grew faster and higher, meeting him a dozen yards in the air. A massive clawed foot reached out and grabbed his legs.

" _Drown_."

It was Rin's voice only. The monster pulled him down to the bottom of the marsh, underneath the swell.

Hidan found that he couldn't move. Chakra bled into him from the water, neutralizing his own chakra and sucking the heat from his body. _Water Prison_. He wasn't worried in the slightest. He couldn't drown; he was immortal!

Then he felt the chakra get denser. The monster poured chakra into the prison. It kept pouring until even Hidan could tell his prison held more chakra than the monster. Or maybe that was just because it was smothering him until he couldn't tell.

Rin felt all the monster's power drain away into the prison. Then she was left, standing on the bottom of the marsh, her hand on a Water Prison so thick with chakra it was physically glowing and she couldn't even see Hidan inside it. (She was a ninja, she could last a while underwater.) She tentatively pulled her hand off the prison. It remained even after she broke contact with it, sustained by the sheer amount of chakra it already contained.

She swam up to the surface and stood on it.

"That Water Prison will last for half a century," the Three Tails told her.

"Was that _all_ your power?" she asked it. How much had it sacrificed to make that Water Prison?

"I sacrificed nothing. My reserves are infinite, the same as any other tailed beast," it answered.

"But the Nine-Tails—"

"That Water Prison contains my total output over half a minute. Those with fewer tails can push out less. Those with more tails can push out more."

"Rin?" Obito interrupted. She blinked and he was standing on the surface next to her. His arm was already growing back. Rin guessed hers had grown back when she transformed into the Three-Tails.

"I'm fine, Obito," she said. She glanced down at the water. "Did you read how long it takes for their immortality to wear off?"

"One or two years, at most."

She smiled wearily at him. "He's not a problem anymore, then."

They went to Obito's dimension. Rin was tired and she wanted to sleep.

* * *

Rin couldn't sleep. She was bone-tired and restless.

She needed someone to talk to. Not Obito, someone older. An elder.

After her grandmother, there was one she wanted to talk to more than anything else. Someone she believed had the answers she desperately needed.

She pulled the crane contract out of her pack. She knew reverse-summoning was possible. And she'd done this before, when she'd first signed the contract almost a year ago. She unscrolled it and pressed her hand where she'd pressed it the first time, and thought as hard as she could for the cranes.

In a puff of smoke, she was in Kushiro Marsh. It was daytime here, but overcast and snowing. She concentrated for a moment, building up fire chakra in her body to counter the cold.

She didn't see any cranes, so she just kept wandering.

"Can you tell me where the Empress is?" she asked the Three-Tails.

"You are being frivolous," it said. "And no."

"I'm being _human_ ," she insisted. She started running across the water, hoping to run into someone. She did, very nearly smacking into Aitenojotei's legs.

"Rin?" the giant crane asked. "What are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

"Something bad happened, and I need somebody—like, an elder—to talk to," she said.

"I'm available," he said.

"Um, I was really hoping for the Empress."

He stared at her for a moment. "I have no authority—"

"Fuck your authority! I'm just—Marsh was attacked and hundreds died and I just need..." she trailed off. She was trying not to cry. She was on the verge of breaking. She'd handled being stuck underground with a dangerous hermit and a fucked-up friend, she'd shrugged it off, looking towards to a better future. She'd handled the Three-Tails, being attacked by and attacking her best friend in turn, but now it was all weighing down on her and she just couldn't shrug it off anymore.

Aitenojotei looked over his shoulder, where the freezing mist was thickest. It was like he was silently asking for permission.

"Kindness in a cruel age," he mumbled, so quiet that Rin didn't quite pick up the words.

"What?"

He looked back at Rin. "Hop on," he said, bending down to her. "I'll take you."

* * *

The snowy mist was actually thicker than her mindscape's.

"Does she really live here?" Rin asked. She'd never traveled this far into Kushiro Marsh.

"Her Imperial Majesty Tanchoujotei is very old, and still has many duties," said Aitenojotei. "At times she prefers solitude. And we're here, so you should get off now."

Rin jumped down to the water, splashing a little because she was tired and jumping on the water's surface was harder than walking on it.

"Your Imperial Majesty," said Aitenojotei, "One of our summoners would like an audience with you."

"Which one?" a voice said in the mist.

He was silent for a moment. "We've only had one in the last forty years," he said softly. Then, louder, "Rin Nohara."

"Is this the same Miss Nohara whom my daughter was complaining about?"

Rin felt very self-conscious now.

"Indeed."

"And what is so important that she interrupts my rest after walking in the Grey Lands?"

Rin's eyes bugged out. _The Empress could go in the Grey Lands? And come back out just like that?_

"War," he said simply. The mist seemed to loom closer.

Rin was even more uncomfortable now because she didn't think of it as a war.

"I'm tired of war, Aitenojotei. When you find me a summoner who is as tired of fighting as I am, then you should bring them to me," said the Empress.

"I don't want a war council or anything!" Rin burst out. "I just... I don't know what I'm supposed to fight for anymore."

There was silence for a moment. Rin was afraid she'd overstepped her bounds. Well, more than she already had by coming here.

"Tell me, young Rin, do you know of Kouketsu and Chuujitsu Nohara? They knew the value of violence: nothing."

"Yes!" Rin said, excited to hear the Empress mention her family, despite how tired she was. "They're my grandmother and great-aunt!"

"Then the Nohara have changed. I'm disappointed. The old Nohara clan would've never become fighting ninja."

"That's not fair!" Rin cried out. "They refused to fight and they _still_ died! The couldn't even defend themselves! They couldn't even defend the people they were supposed to be helping! _That's_ why I'm a ninja! So I _can_ protect myself, and others!"

The mist grew thicker and closer. Rin wondered, if she reached out and touched it, would it feel like a crane's feathers?

"I just..." Rin started. "I just don't know if it matters anymore."

"Tell me who you've protected, young Rin," said the Empress.

* * *

Dan Kato stepped up to the podium. Every jounin stood at rapt attention.

"I know I'm not Minato Namikaze," Dan said. "I wasn't chosen before him, and was only reluctantly chosen after."

The Three Greats, Lord Third, the heads of the Four Noble Clans of Hidden Leaf, and Kushina Uzumaki stood behind him.

"I'm a poor replacement for a ninja who was truly great. I know that, you know that.

"But Hidden Leaf itself remains great. I'm only as strong as you are. We stand greater than we ever could alone. That's the Will of Fire, and every Fire Shadow before, and every Fire Shadow after, believes in that." Dan paused.

"Minato Namikaze hoped to bridge the gap between nations. I'm the lesser man, and can only dream of bridging the gaps within us.

"I hope to bridge the gap between clans and the clanless," continued Dan. "I am both. I was born clanless, but with a bloodline. I grew up with no clan, and now grow old as a Senju."

Behind him, Kushina snorted. Forty was hardly "old". Especially by Uzumaki standards.

Dan continued for only a little longer. It wasn't much of a speech. He was a little surprised he'd gotten so many jounin votes, actually. Perhaps they recognized the qualities a Fire Shadow needed to lead Hidden Leaf.

Dan was not a violent man, but he was prepared to do violence to protect what he believed in.

That's what being Fire Shadow was all about. True, violence should be avoided if at all possible, but the Fire Shadow was a military leader, and it was their fundamental purpose to channel the collective will to violence of the almost one million ninjas of Hidden Leaf as productively as possible. To protect what was worth saving.

* * *

Behind him, Fugaku was silent, outwardly calm, and inwardly furious. The Uchiha had been cheated—again—out of the Fire Shadow office. They were the greatest clan in all of Fire Country! The role of Fire Shadow was _owed_ to them.

The jounins' choice for the new Fire Shadow was doubly infuriating. The first two Fire Shadows had already been Senju, and the third was their student, which was practically the same thing. (The third was also a Sarutobi, which meant two of the Four Noble Clans of Hidden Leaf had preceded the Uchiha.) The fourth had been some no-name civilian-born kid—no clan at all! A clanless ninja picked before the great Uchiha! Now the Fifth Fire Shadow was both civilian-born _and_ married into the Senju.

Yes, technically, Dan Kato had a bloodline. A new bloodline, one nobody had ever seen before but was frighteningly powerful. Fugaku dismissed this. _Proper_ bloodlines were obvious and would manifest even without ninja training. But Dan's "bloodline" hadn't manifested until he was already an experienced chunin, and it'd appeared slowly in fits and spurts—less like a bloodline and more like any old ninja skill. He and his sister were the first in their family to become ninjas. No one knew if they were the first of a new bloodline, or if the Kato had always had it, hidden even from themselves.

It made Dan soft, like Minato had been. Fugaku appreciated violence because he had millennia of heritage to interpret it through. Clanless ninjas were interlopers in a sprawling, eternal history of war.

Not that Fugaku was an inherently violent man. If violence was truly a natural instinct, like some fools believed, then humanity would've killed itself off at the very start. Violence was merely the greatest tool a ninja had. The will to violence was more important than any killing intent. Many ninjas never honed their killing intent into a weapon, but all ninjas (all _real_ ninjas at least) used violence.

Killing intent was by its nature very personal, a manifestation of your monstrous desire to _hurt_ the person in front of you, to make them suffer and die violently. Many ninjas preferred detached professionalism—their actions were never personal, just necessary. But at the end of the day, hateful and impersonal ninjas alike destroyed their enemies. Violence was every true ninjas' specialty, and they were exceedingly good at it.

Because violence was the only power that mattered.

* * *

Rin talked. She talked about everything, about the Marsh Country genocide, about her choice to become a ninja, about the Three-Tails, about Madara, about Obito, but most of all she talked about Hidan. Because out of all of these things, Hidan was the only one she couldn't understand. The other things were sometimes personal, sometimes terrifying, but she could grasp their purpose. Hidan was an aberration, one so alien and _pointlessly horrifying_ she couldn't fathom why he'd done what he had.

When she was done, the Empress spoke. "All ninjas are defined by violence. It is their sole reason for existing."

"But—"

"They value it so much, they forbid civilians from learning how to wield chakra. They were given a gift that is capable of _anything_ —healing as easily as it hurts, creating as easily as it destroys, bringing comfort as easily as pain—and can conceive of it only as a weapon.

"After 5,000 years of turning peace into war, of taking plowshares and beating them into swords, you have the gall to come here and ask why one ninja literally _worships_ violence? Practice the art of war enough, and you birth a cult of violence. Hidan was an inevitability, not an aberration."

Rin stood there gaping. The Empress' words echoed the Three-Tails', but she couldn't brush them off this time. The Empress' gravity held her in a way even the Three-Tails couldn't.

"I'm sorry," Rin finally said, quietly. It was all she could think to say. Before today, she'd never thought about her world like that.

The Empress sighed wearily.

"You are very young, Rin. You never thought to question the very system you exist within because no one ever taught you how," she said.

"There isn't anything right I can do, is there?" Rin half-asked, mostly-stated in a quiet voice. "If I stop being a ninja, I'll just get killed. If I keep being a ninja, I kill others. I can't change _anything_."

"I never said you couldn't defend yourself," said the Empress. "And you _can_ do something."

"Like what?" asked Rin. It probably wasn't anything good.

"You cannot move the world. No one can—not alone. And if you were to accuse it, righteously, no one would listen. But you can live in dissent. _Be human in this most inhuman of ages_. Be merciful in this cruel age. Listen to the people others throw away."

Rin stood in silence. It was all she could do.

"You should go now," said the Empress. "I have nothing more to say and you have nothing more to do. Spending the night awake will not make your crisis, or the world, any better."

Rin bowed, thanked her, and left. Thanked the Empress for what, she wasn't sure. The world seemed a lot bigger now, and not in a good way. More like she'd realized the small weight pressing down on her was actually an enormous mountain, so vast she couldn't really comprehend it, and there was nothing she could do. She would never get out from under it.

In a puff of smoke, Rin reappeared back in Obito's dimension.

"How'd it go?" asked Obito.

"I'm tired and I don't wanna talk about it." She flumped down next to him.

"Oh. Okay," he said.

At least she had company, stuck under this massive weight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mercy in a cruel age. Human in an inhuman time. _That_ is why I'll never write a "dark" Naruto. You can't destroy a system without rejecting the very terms it tries to set.
> 
> The challenge of this story is that it unironically presents cool fight scenes, but also acknowledges that the only true happy ending is one where fighting is no longer the ultimate purpose of ninja, where Naruto doesn't grow up to feed his own children into the very system that destroyed his mother's clan and his best friend's clan. It's less a balancing act and more just blatant hypocrisy.
> 
> Part of the Empress' speech is adapted from a very well-known quote by Thomas Merton. It's one of my favorites.
> 
> And yes, I wrote it so that Obito's Kaleidoscope can't phase and warp at the same time, even with both eyes activated. I mean, he's already formidable with both abilities, letting him use them at the same time would make him grossly overpowered. I can write much more interesting fight scenes if Obito's constantly forced to choose between offense (projected warping), defense (either eye's phasing), and teleportation (personal warping).
> 
> It took me a while to figure out how to handle killing intent. It doesn't actually appear that much in canon—the Naruto wiki itself can only name two examples— but I don't mind the emphasis that other fanfics place on it. I just didn't want it to be a generic "badass projector," because for me, in a good fight scene, badassery is a quality to be actively demonstrated, not merely signaled. The way I imagine it, killing intent creates a sort of mild paranoia in the target, a simultaneous feeling of being hunted and that death is imminent. It's only crippling to an inexperienced ninja, or when its source is way out-of-scale compared to humans (e.g. the Nine-Tails), but even to experienced ninja it can still be a mild distraction and give a small edge in battle.
> 
> The way I use it in this story is a way to explore character. Hidan worships a god of death, so killing intent comes very easily for him. For most ninjas, on the other hand, killing intent requires a single-minded drive to attack their enemy (e.g. Zabuza). For others, they're too professional to ever get that emotionally invested in fighting an enemy (e.g. young Kakashi or any member of Root). Others just can't bring themselves to be that mean (e.g. Might Guy). When, and against whom, a person projects killing intent says something about their character. Not a whole lot, but it's a small detail I feel worth including.


	11. Before the Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Akatsuki_ literally means "Dawn". _Gedo Mazo_ means something like "Demonic Statue of the Outer Path", which is one hell of a mouthful. Since it's both obviously a statue and technically not a statue at all (it's the Ten-Tails' corpse), I shaved it down to "Demon of the Outer Path".

* * *

Two weeks ago, Nagato found a new part of his destiny. In a way, he'd already seen it, he just hadn't known what it was. He was grateful to his new guide for showing him.

Nagato was guided by his eyes, by his destiny, in everything he did.

"You're the Sage of Six Paths, reborn," Jiraiya had told him years ago. Nagato believed that. He was here to save the world from itself. He believed in Yahiko's vision, and as the Child of Prophecy, he would make it come true.

Patrolling villages on the edge of Rain, ones that Hidden Rain ninjas had abandoned long ago to rogues and bandits, was a part of that destiny. This was what he could do—protecting people from ninjas—for now. And it's what he would continue doing, even after gaining more power; guarding people from killers, widening Dawn's circle of influence, until the hidden villages were no more and the world was free of ninjas.

Two weeks ago, on that patrol, a voiced called out to him.

* * *

"Boy with the eyes," a voice called out.

Nagato immediately signed for two water clones, and carefully arrayed them around himself. He'd figured out long ago that his clones were special—his eyes were special—and he shared a field of vision with his clones.

Something oily and black bubbled up out of the ground. The rain didn't wash it away. A white plant sprung up by the ooze, and the oil climbed up it. Nagato could see the chakra in it. The white one's chakra was washed-out—he wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been looking for it—while the oil's was strong and repellant.

"What are you? And what do you want with me?"

A strange human formed out of the white plant and grimy oil. It spoke with no mouth.

"You are the heir of the Sage of Six Paths, Nagato, and I am the guardian of his will."

Nagato was cautious. "Why does a servant of the Great Sage feel so foul?"

"I am a mirror held up to the world. I am no more twisted than the heart of every human. Only if you redeem the world, save it from itself, can I at last be cleansed."

The thing felt strange and otherworldly. Nagato didn't trust its claims about the Great Sage, but he also felt it wasn't a servant of Hanzo. Hanzo had a _method_ , a way of using his power honed over decades. This thing was nothing like any of that.

"What's your name, if you have one?" asked Nagato.

"You can call me Senzetsu."

"Well, Senzetsu, why should I trust you?" he asked.

"When you dream at night," spoke the servant, "do you sometimes see a great beast, frozen, like a statue?"

He stared at it for a moment. "Yes."

"I can tell you what it is. It's a weapon, unlike any on this earth. It was how the Sage of Six Paths brought peace to this world, millennia ago. None can wield it but you."

Nagato was intrigued. "And how do I get this weapon?"

"Its cost, unfortunately, is quite steep," Senzetsu said. "It requires all the tailed beasts to power it."

It would take a great deal of effort to obtain all nine tailed beasts. But Nagato needed power. He could barely fend off one tyrant right now, much less change the world.

"Can you tell me more?"

"It'd be no harder to summon than any of your other powers. It can be used right now, actually, to a limited extent, even without the tailed beasts. It may even be enough to defeat Hanzo. Though I would advise you not to, Son of Sages. Without preparation it might destroy you. But this is hardly the place for details. I merely wished to introduce myself. At the moment, it is enough that you know. You should finish your patrol, now. The people need you."

Nagato nodded. This being, this weapon, was a part of his destiny. He knew it, he felt it, his eyes showed it to him.

"How will I find you again? Do I come back here?"

"No need," said Senzetsu. "I already know where you stay. I _am_ connected with you, after all, as a servant of the Great Sage. When you need to know more, I'll be there. You should go now."

Nagato dispelled his clones and continued his patrol. The villages around the border were frequently attacked, seen as easy targets far from the protection of any major cities, with just enough resources to make tempting targets but not enough wealth to regularly hire ninja.

Hanzo didn't care. Hanzo wanted control and power, while Yahiko, while Dawn, wanted an end to the fear and death ninjas wielded so easily.

Black Zetsu pulled itself underground and sensed him go. It was quite pleased with itself. It'd set Nagato on the right path. The Eye of the Moon would be made, even without Obito.

The final step of the Moon's Eye, of course, was to resurrect Madara. It would be easy enough to claim that, as a mere servant of the Sage of Six Paths, it didn't know how to wield the so-called weapon—the Ten-Tails—properly. Nagato would need another "teacher".

The Ten-Tails would be remade. Madara would be reborn a god. The _true_ heir of the Sage of Six Paths would finally reign over the world.

* * *

Two weeks ago, Danzo of Hidden Leaf and Hanzo the Salamander met, because Danzo knew a threat when he saw one.

Danzo Shimura was a harsh man because he lived in a harsh world. The only principle he held to was Hidden Leaf itself. It was the only thing worth protecting. Everything else could be compromised.

"And I should trust you, why?" asked the man in front of him.

Danzo could respect Hanzo the Salamander. Like him, he understood the world as it was.

"Because, Lord Hanzo, the 'revolution' Dawn preaches is not just for the Land of Rain. It's in Hidden Leaf's interest that they are crushed here, before they become emboldened and spread outside of Rain," Danzo answered.

"I'm sure you'd be happy to see the 'Monster of Rain' deposed, Danzo," Hanzo responded. "Surely it'd be easier to crush them in the chaos left after my removal?"

Danzo's respect for him dipped ever so slightly. Hanzo was a tyrant, yes, but tyranny and ninjas where hardly incompatible. The multi-clan cooperative of Leaf and the autocracy of Rain were all, ultimately, still hidden ninja villages. Such villages were the foundation for all the prosperity now enjoyed by the many nations of the ninja world. That they occasionally warred with each other hardly mattered. Danzo would personally behead every threat to Leaf's way of life, if he had to.

"We are both hidden villages. Our way of life unites us. What you do to your own people is no concern of ours. What is my—our—concern is a dangerous group whose purpose is the utter destruction of our way of life."

Hanzo's face was covered by his respirator, but Danzo still got the feeling he was smirking.

"Well, _ally_ , I hope you don't find my methods of crushing rebellions too harsh."

Danzo honestly didn't care. "Didn't I just say? It's no concern of mine what you do with your own country." Danzo was satisfied with his choices. Better a local tyrant for a neighbor than global rabble-rousers.

They spent a half hour working out the details. When it was over, Danzo signed and he crumbled to earth. Hanzo collapsed into water. Both had sent clones, neither trusting the other enough to appear in person.

* * *

One week ago, Rin and Obito warped into Grass, skipping the run across Waterfall Country. Rin bought a mask anyways, still worried. Like Obito's it echoed her heritage. It was flat, like his, but instead of tomoe it had a single crane, grey-colored on the white mask, its wings spread in a graceful arc upward. She kept her protector, emblazoned with the Leaf symbol, hanging it loosely around her neck. She didn't think of herself as a rogue ninja.

One week ago, Black Zetsu met with Nagato a second time, to warn him of a dangerous young man named Obito Uchiha, who'd destroyed his own home and sought only power. The young woman at his side was also dangerous, and held one of the tailed beasts Nagato needed to power the Demon of the Outer Path.

And one day ago, Danzo met with Dawn, not speaking of whom he worked for or what village he came from, but offering to help bring down a mutual enemy.

* * *

Now, Yahiko was dead. He'd died for Konan, for Nagato, for Dawn itself. And Konan was dead, killed by Hanzo, by a man who took hostages and always killed them anyway.

Nagato wanted Hanzo dead. He wanted Danzo's village dead, because they'd pretended to support Dawn, only for Danzo to stand with Hanzo and attack alongside the tyrant. They'd murdered Yahiko and Konan just as much as Hidden Rain.

Nagato closed his eyes and thought of the statue he saw in his dreams. And he _pulled_. Even knowing the consequences, even knowing he might die, in this moment it seemed worth it. All of Dawn's enemies would be destroyed.

A great statue rose up from the ground. It was a strange head with nine eyes, surrounded by a forest of outgrowths, like thick, twisted, branchless trees. Its two hands were held at jaw-height, palms upward, fingers splayed and curled up to point at the sky. It was a pose that'd be uncomfortable for any human, and it made the statue even more grotesque.

 _Demon of the Outer Path_.

Nagato stood between the monster's wrists. He'd only summoned the upper quarter and he was already tired. Nagato opened his eyes and reached his arm out to Hanzo, willing him to die, and the statue moved with him, swiped out at the oppressor, knocking great chunks of rock off the cliff he stood on.

Nagato willed more of the statue to appear. Hanzo wasn't dead yet. Yahiko and Konan hadn't been avenged. Then his eyes stung, and he fell to his knees as pain pierced into his back. He looked, blurry-eyed, at the statue behind him, and saw rods digging into his back, connecting him to the statue. It was consuming him, extracting a price he couldn't quite afford to pay for a power he needed right now.

"Nagato!" yelled Kie as he ran up to him.

"Don't touch them!" ordered Nagato as Kie reached out to grab the rods. Kie dropped his hand, looking helplessly at the last remaining leader of Dawn.

A spiraling hole, like space itself was draining away, appeared between the statue and Nagato. It pulled in part of the rods connecting them, severing his connection, then disappeared.

A ninja appeared, out of thin air, by Yahiko's corpse. Nagato was immediately on edge. They looked professional. Dawn was always low on supplies, and relied on whatever ninja gear they could steal, while this ninja was very put-together. They wore a white mask with some kind of gray bird on it, and a green ninja vest, with the standard forehead protector hanging from their neck. The bottom half of a dark purple knee-length, open cloak stuck out from under the vest. Their black, open-toed shoes and black pants were in far too good a condition.

To Nagato, they looked like every other hidden village ninja. They looked like every other enemy. Kyusuke, always close to Yahiko when he was alive, tensed, his sword at the ready.

"Hey, Nagato!" the mystery ninja's voice called out. "Did Yahiko die more than ten minutes ago?"

"Who... No," stammered Nagato, taken aback by this masked stranger who knew his name.

The ninja nodded, kneeled by Yahiko's corpse, and pressed hands green with chakra to the body. Nagato staggered to his feet, and it somehow hurt worse than any injury. He forced himself to limp forward.

"Kyusuke! Attack!" he yelled at the other man, who was just standing there helplessly, sword in hand but not using it.

"I... he's already dead, sir. They're not attacking us," Kyusuke stammered.

As Nagato walked, another masked ninja appeared, again out of thin air, Konan's corpse at their feet. The second looked like the first, only without a protector or vest and a slightly different mask. The upper half of the same cloak was closed, a white sash around their waist.

The ninja by Yahiko briefly looked up at the other, and if they said anything, Nagato couldn't hear it. The second ninja vanished into nothing.

"What're you doing?" he demanded as the ninja pressed glowing hands to Yahiko's wound—the very wound that'd killed him.

"I'm healing him, you dope," they snapped.

Nagato stared. He didn't know chakra could heal. (All those years ago, Jiraiya had said Tsunade was the world's greatest medic, but Nagato had assumed that meant like the ordinary doctors he sometimes saw.) "He's already dead."

"Shut up and let me work."

Nagato didn't trust this stranger, narrowing his eyes at the Leaf protector they wore around their neck. But he also saw the wound grow smaller, slowly, until it was gone.

Yahiko _breathed_ and coughed, opening his eyes. Nagato heard Kie and Kyusuke cry out, but he ignored them.

"What happened?" was the first thing Yahiko said. "Is this the Pure Land?"

"Ask Nagato," the strange ninja said curtly. "And don't move too much, you're not fully healed." They moved to Konan.

"Nagato?" Yahiko asked. Then he frowned, seeing Nagato, literally half-withered, strange metal rods jutting out of his back. "What the hell happened to you? What did Hanzo do? And sit down, you look like you're gonna collapse." Yahiko tried to sit up, but he stopped as he felt his ribs protest.

Nagato carefully sat down. Not that any care helped much; moving at all hurt now.

"You're alive," said Nagato. "That ninja brought you back from the dead. They just appeared, along with another ninja."

"What the hell happened to you?" repeated Yahiko.

"I tried to use a new power. I paid the price."

"No offense, but that's a real shit power." Yahiko's eyes focused over his shoulder. "What is that _thing_ behind you?"

"That's the power I tried using."

"What's going on?"

Yahiko and Nagato stared up at Konan, who was leaning on the healer ninja.

"It's a _miracle_ ," blurted Yahiko.

The mystery ninja harrumphed. "You know, for people who hate ninjas so much, you sure don't know a damned thing about them," they said. It didn't stop Kie and Kyusuke from repeating "miracle" themselves.

The ninja helped Konan sit next to Yahiko, across from Nagato.

"Are you going to heal Nagato?" asked Konan when she saw the state of his body.

"You're all alive and safe. There's a battle happening _right now_ , and ending it is the only real way to prevent further injuries. Healing you any more would be a waste of my chakra," they said, standing back up. "Medic's order: don't move from this spot. Obito said the statue would protect you all."

Nagato's brow was furrowed. He'd been warned about a man named Obito Uchiha, who'd destroyed his own home and plotted to take Nagato's eyes for their power. He'd also been warned about the woman at his side, who had a dangerous power she could lose control of at any moment. Was that her? Was she talking about that Obito? Why were they helping them?

"You two!" snapped probably-Rin at Kie and Kyusuke. "Don't leave, either. Guard these three in case something gets past the statue."

Kie objected. "Hey, you can't order us ar—"

Kyusuke slapped his hand over his comrade's mouth. "You don't even have to ask. We'd never abandon the heart of Dawn."

Rin nodded. Then Nagato felt her gaze through the mask.

"Just don't do anything major with it, Nagato, or you'll get worse." She signed and body swapped with a large rock.

* * *

Immediately after Obito warped Konan's corpse to Rin, he warped back. One handsign, nine fire clones, ten Great Fire Annihilations. Half his chakra was spent incinerating a quarter of Hanzo's forces. He'd thought he'd at least halve them, but despite Great Fire Annihilation's speed, a wall of water managed to form before it could completely sweep through Hanzo's army. He winced a little inside, because it was still the most people he'd ever killed. Well, directly.

Obito poured another quarter of his reserves into a Great Wood Dragon. It still took a full six seconds to make. He phased out while doing so, since he couldn't afford to stay vulnerable that long. He saw a few squads leap down the cliff to where Rin and the others were, but his senses told him they were dying as they approached the statue.

He sent his wood dragon against the rest of the army, especially the odd group of black-ops-looking ninja, who moved as a group separately from the rest. Last he heard, Hidden Rain didn't have any black-ops. Was somebody allying with Hanzo?

Obito's first thought was to rip Hanzo's head off with Authority, but it sputtered out as soon as he focused it on him. Obito frowned. Did Hanzo have an anti-space-time seal? He _was_ legendary for his caution, infamous for always having a counter to otherwise instantly-lethal attacks. It was how he'd survived all these years as a hated tyrant, surrounded by a people who feared him and bordered by nations that resented him.

(Space-time techniques were rare and, excepting techniques like Hiding in Water and its equivalents, were always S-rank. It was a testament to Hanzo's paranoia that he had an anti-space-time seal ready, just in case, on the off-hand chance an S-level ninja who used them appeared. A personal anti-space-time seal was also a gruesome thought. Even Minato never used one. Making such a seal permanent and attached to your own skin was a forbidden technique. It was costly, and would need to be regularly renewed with human sacrifice.)

Obito charged him, phasing out while he signed Great Fire Destruction, getting close and releasing it only a few feet away. Hanzo made a single sign, like Obito, but with only one hand, and a massive firestorm erupted around Obito, absorbing his fire attack and turning it against him.

_What the hell?_

He knew fire techniques couldn't be stopped by ordinary water. Fire techniques used fire chakra as fuel, though air could feed it further. But for the rain itself to burst into fire like that?

That wasn't Obito's only problem. His vision was being obscured, despite the Kaleidoscope, by a blue haze that surrounded him. His senses were being smothered by a light blanket of chakra. It was hard to sense Hanzo in it.

He saw Rin appear, body swapping with a nearby rock a few yards away from him. "Rin, wait!" he shouted. He phased her out with his left Kaleidoscope. Hanzo's seal made it useless, and a water clone appeared in an instant and slammed into her, turning into a Water Dragon Bullet as it pushed her away.

Rin herself wasn't sure how, but she'd body swapped close to Obito, then an eyeblink later found herself slammed against a tree forty yards away.

 _Oh, right. Special jounin_ _Rin Nohara versus the guy who held off three S-level ninjas._ Her pride hurt almost as much as her body.

She saw Hanzo pursuing her (probably a water clone), and she body flickered back to the statue as fast as she could. (There wasn't anything to body swap with where Dawn was waiting. She'd just have to put up with the vomiting for two minutes.) She swore she felt the tree behind her burst into splinters even as she flickered.

Obito trusted Rin to survive. Or rather, he trusted that he could force the Three-Tails to revive Rin if necessary. And going after her would merely draw Hanzo's main focus closer to her.

Obito closed the distance again, a kunai in each hand. He didn't even bother phasing in, because he knew Hanzo's protective seals would forcibly phase the kunai back in for him—right into his own body.

Just before Obito hit him, Hanzo flickered in place. His Kaleidoscope told him _body swap_ , recognizing it even without handsigns, but he couldn't move physically fast enough to avoid piercing the clone, or dodge the Water Dragon Bullet that slammed into him right as he contacted it.

Obito felt the chakra around Hanzo condense into a single blob. A tsunami slammed into him. He phased out, but some of the water around Obito become a water clone that grabbed him, phasing him in. The water chakra neutralized his own chakra, making it extraordinarily difficult to use any techniques.

Obito finally put everything together. Hanzo was using the water itself to store his chakra. The rain, the puddles, the lakes, were all filled with it. He couldn't sense Hanzo because he felt the same as everything else. Hanzo wasn't a sage—at least, Obito didn't think he was—but he'd made something very close to it, pouring the chakra that a ninja's metabolism normally discarded once its reserves were full into the Land of Rain itself, and wielding it as a fearsome weapon. And since he could directly control it, that meant he barely needed to sign. He could even transform it into fire chakra for a fire technique. Hanzo was practically unbeatable in his own country.

He couldn't warp. The sheer amount of water chakra made it difficult even to body flicker, as it snuffed out his chakra every time he tried to focus it. He forced himself to, feeling his hands throb as he tried to sign while even more water clones formed around him, driving copies of Hanzo's famous chain-sickle into his body.

Obito landed on the ground and groaned. It'd been a while since he'd body flickered, but he was grateful that it wasn't, technically, a space-time technique, just very high-speed movement. The vertigo wasn't really a problem for him. The Copy Wheel still guided his movements, though it was almost impossible to actually _strategize_ , or do anything more than react in the moment, while feeling that sick. And he didn't vomit because he didn't really eat. Obito stayed on the ground because those sickles had been poisoned, and now that his life wasn't in danger it was easier not to move. (Though with his plant body any poison would only slow him down for a while.)

He'd landed where everyone huddled under the statue, itself surrounded by piles of corpses. The Demon of the Outer Path responded to its summoner's will, as Madara had told him.

He sensed Hanzo and his army were retreating. The chakra coating the land and filling the air pulled away.

Obito also sensed Rin was with Nagato and the others. "Rin?" he called out, still unable to get up. (Sages, it hurt to talk. He'd had blades driven through at least six different places.) 

"Yeah?" she said, walking over. She collapsed next to him.

"You alright?" he asked.

"I'm okay," she said, giving him a tired look. "This is _still_ only the second-worst idea you've ever had."

* * *

After the battle, it was Rin who ended up asking to join Dawn. Obito hadn't been sure how to ask. Madara's plan involved presenting himself with mystery and power, bringing Dawn under his heel using Madara's name and Obito's own Kaleidoscope. Obito didn't particularly enjoy dominating others. He enjoyed winning, sure, but the act of utterly crushing his enemies wasn't something he reveled in like Madara had. It wasn't how he'd imagined himself as Fire Shadow when he was a child, and he still didn't like the idea of it now. (Though, sometimes, while working with Rin and seeing her dead through his Kaleidoscope, he wondered how desperate and angry he would've become if she _had_ stayed dead.)

Yahiko and Konan sent the other surviving members of Dawn ahead to one of their bases. They stayed in a cave, hidden not by seal or illusion but nature itself. It seemed they were the ones in charge of recruiting newcomers.

Nagato insisted on staying behind with them, despite his injuries, sitting uncomfortably on the ground. He refused any offers of healing from Rin, glaring at the Leaf protector and chunin vest she wore. However much she helped them, she was still a Leaf ninja at heart. She took orders from killers, and had almost certainly killed many innocents herself. He brushed off Konan and Yahiko's gushing about her "miracle" to gruffly remind them that she was a Leaf ninja, loyal to the same village that'd murdered his family.

Obito also felt Nagato's eyes on him. Obito's first thought was also the worst: that Black Zetsu had already reached Nagato, and turned him towards the Eye of the Moon.

"Do you even know what Dawn is fighting for?" asked Nagato them accusingly.

Rin answered. "All ninjas are tyrants. Chakra is the right of all people."

Yahiko pursed his lips. "Did you get that from a pamphlet?"

She nodded. "A girl was passing them out," she said. Rin was a little nervous now. Was that not good enough? Did it make her interest seem too casual?

"Ugh," Yahiko groaned. "I keep telling those kids to stop doing that. They're gonna get _caught_ one day, and Hanzo doesn't care about age, he'll execute anybody for 'crimes against the village'."

Konan cleared her throat. "We don't judge you for learning about us from one of our teenaged 'pamphleteer' fans. As long as you wholeheartedly support the revolution."

"Anybody can parrot slogans. What does the revolution mean to _you_?" said Nagato. You'd think he'd be less aggressive, considering Rin had saved both his friends' lives.

Rin closed her eyes and breathed deep. _You cannot move the world—not alone. But you can live in dissent._ She opened her eyes.

"I'm dissenting from a fucked-up world," she answered.

Konan leaned forward, interested. "Oh?"

"The ninja system takes something amazing—chakra—and teaches people that it's only a weapon. I want a world where hurting others with chakra is the _last_ thing anybody thinks of. And I think I can start building that here."

All three of them nodded—even Nagato.

"And you, ghost?" Nagato asked Obito pointedly.

Obito had stood there impassively the whole time. "Me?"

" _Well_?" pressed Nagato.

Obito was silent for a long moment.

Nagato scoffed. "This is a waste of our—"

"I'm tired of killing my friends," Obito said.

Everyone was staring at him now, even Rin.

"I was taught to kill and sent out to die. I want to die knowing I'll be the last. I don't want anybody else like me." Then he was silent again.

Nagato tilted his head, still glaring at him. "A self-hating ninja. I suppose I can respect that."

They were walked to the entrance of the cave by Konan and Yahiko.

"By the way," said Konan, "we have one more question. Do you have any significant others, children, or close family?"

Rin couldn't help but chuckle at that, remembering a time when her team was still whole, when Obito was still silly and Kakashi still serious.

"Something funny?" Konan asked.

"Sorry, last time someone asked my teammate if he had a 'partner', they were trying to hit on him," Rin answered. She suspected Obito was glaring at her. That incident was years ago, but Rin still found it genuinely funny.

"Well, it's an important question," stated Konan. "Hanzo takes hostages. _Frequently_. Last week we lost one of our main hideouts when someone betrayed us to save a hostage Hanzo had taken. He killed them anyways. All of them."

"That's fair," said Rin. "Other than my teammate, I don't have anyone Hanzo can get to."

"The last person also said that," Yahiko pointed out. "And Hanzo still got them."

"I'm a foreigner, sir," Rin said. "My only family are in Hidden Leaf Village, and they're not field ninja."

"And your teammate?" asked Yahiko.

"My family wants me dead anyways," said Obito, barely loud enough to be heard.

Konan nodded her head at them. "That's fine. Thank you for answering. We need a few minutes to, uh, deliberate."

"You mean you need a few minutes to convince Nagato," said Rin, more amused than resentful with this.

They grinned sheepishly at that, then walked back to Nagato.

"Did you really have to bring that up? It's embarrassing," complained Obito when they were gone.

"It really was funny. You loved that noble girl's attention _and_ you were terrified of Kakashi breaking you up. Besides, it's my right as a friend to embarrass you sometimes."

"Does this mean I can bring up how you're a huge fan of the worst romance books ever published?"

She shrugged. "Sure, but I don't think it's that embarrassing. And you read them, too."

"I wanted something better than the awful books Kakashi insisted I read," Obito said.

"Why _did_ you hate his books?"

"They were all tragedies," he said. "He had so, so many books about noble warriors sacrificing their lives. I needed something with a happy ending after all of that."

Rin felt it was a good sign that they could talk about Kakashi this easily now. Rin missed him, as did Obito, but she didn't want his memory to always make them feel sad.

* * *

The only reason Danzo hadn't disappeared Kouketsu Nohara into a Root facility for interrogation was, of all people, the Uchiha clan. She'd been present as Obito had escaped from an inescapable barrier—she carried valuable intelligence about the enemy, whether she realized or not. It's not like anybody would miss a Nohara anyways. But the Uchiha jealously guarded their secrets, and so guarded Kouketsu from Root. They even kept her from the mind-walking Yamanaka at the regular interrogation branch, isolating her case within the military police's own bureaucracy.

Fugaku had declared that, since the Nohara had clearly been one of Obito Uchiha's targets, but had been foiled, they required extra protection. They were to be heavily guarded by the military police until they were certain Obito wouldn't return to finish the job. It was the least they could do, he'd said, after a fellow Uchiha had shamed them by betraying Leaf.

This infuriated Danzo. However Obito's power worked, the Uchiha clan knew, and despite risking the security of Hidden Leaf, they weren't telling.

Even more infuriating was how the Uchiha found out. It'd taken several days for admin to piece together what'd actually happened that night. There'd been two Obitos, somehow—not a clone, since clones died when the original did, and the second Obito had kept fighting even after the Fourth Fire Shadow killed the first.

That Kouketsu might know how Obito escaped the Four Violet Flames seal was a small detail that the Uchiha should've found out _after_ Danzo. He'd underestimated how deeply the Uchiha subverted Leaf itself. He knew the Uchiha were loyal to their clan, even before the village. He knew they seeded loyalists in every branch of Leaf, and schemed to steer the village even without holding the seat of Fire Shadow. They were nominally one of the four founding clans of Leaf, but seemed more than willing to compromise the village to preserve their secrets and their power. But it seemed they were deliberately thumbing their nose at him now, intercepting and acting on information before Danzo rightfully could.

It infuriated Danzo, but he couldn't afford to be anything other than cold. Too much was on the line to let emotion guide him. He wasn't like the Uchiha.

* * *

Mikoto's hand had barely hit the door when it was yanked open and she was pulled into a hug.

"I love you, too, Kushina," she said. "How's it going? I brought food."

"Naruto's _finally_ asleep. I'm tired, my tits hurt, and I'm alone," Kushina grumbled into her ear. She pulled Mikoto into her apartment.

Mito Uzumaki, decades ago, had built a small clan compound. It was supposed to house the few survivors of the Second War Genocide, and form the center of a grander complex as the Uzumaki clan resurrected itself.

Kushina had lived alone in this small compound almost her entire life. It showed. The Uzumaki was a clan in name only; their wealth and power had been destroyed with their country.

Here and there were small signs of order, where Minato had put his own things or organized Kushina's. Considering how messy and careless Kushina usually was, it seemed odd that these little islands were still untouched after several weeks. Or maybe not so odd. Mikoto didn't like the idea of her friend desperately holding on to the last reminders of her lover. Kushina had always put so much effort to into appearing strong and optimistic, that for all she talked about her clan, she never openly mourned them. But for Minato, she was already leaving little shrines to him.

Kushina collapsed on the couch while Mikoto sat down much more gracefully.

"If they hurt, you're breastfeeding Naruto wrong," she told Kushina. "You need to position his mouth right."

"You mean there's a technique to it?"

Mikoto tried very hard not to judge her. Kushina tried to keep up appearances, always talking a lot about her heritage, but she really was alone in this. Mikoto had had an entire clan of more experienced mothers to help her with Itachi, while Kushina was all by herself.

They sat there quietly for a moment. Mikoto was about to break the silence, wanting to ask how Naruto was doing, maybe distract her with the idea of playdates between Naruto and Sasuke in a couple years, when Kushina spoke.

"I miss Minato." It was almost a whisper. It didn't sound right coming from the brash, loudmouthed Kushina.

Mikoto didn't know what to say. She still had her husband. She was familiar with loss—she'd gained her third tomoe hunting down a former teammate-turned-traitor—but she knew that wasn't the same. Kushina had loved Minato like Mikoto loved Fugaku.

"Naruto already looks like him," Kushina went on, still quiet. She choked. "Minato's four weeks dead and Naruto's four weeks old and _all I can see_ when I look at him is his father. And he's just a month old. What happens when he's six? Sixteen? Is it always gonna hurt when I look at him?"

She was cradling her head in her hands now. ""I don't wanna feel sad around my own kid. And it's—what if I'm the last?" Kushina didn't know how to put it into words. She missed Minato, and she saw him in Naruto, and she feared Naruto would grow up knowing that, she was afraid he'd choose the father he looked like instead of his Uzumaki heritage.

"Kushina?" said Mikoto softly, putting her hand on her friend's shoulder. "Naruto is Minato's child, but he's also yours. He may have Minato's eyes and his hair, but Naruto has _your_ skin and _your_ name. Your heritage isn't just the past anymore. It's the now. He'll be a _great_ Uzumaki, and everyone'll know it." As she spoke, Mikoto gently but firmly pulled her friend up to eye level.

Kushina smiled and nodded through bleary eyes.

"I know. But thanks, Mikoto," she said, pulling her close.

"And if you ever need any help with Naruto, always know you can just ask me," Mikoto said.

Kushina was quiet for a moment, not-quite-crying into her friend's shoulder. Then, she pulled back.

"So, you said you brought food?" Kushina said, managing a small smile. "I'm _starving_ and I haven't had time to cook in weeks."

"Please tell me you haven't been living off of instant ramen this whole time," Mikoto said.

Kushina grinned sheepishly. "That's also part of Naruto's heritage."

* * *

Sakumo watched his son practice. Kakashi's aim was less than perfect.

Of course it was. He only had one eye. Before, it didn't matter that Kakashi was ever-so-slightly off his aim, because he'd only needed to reveal the Copy Wheel to instantly become better than his best when he still had two eyes.

Now, imperfect was Kakashi's best, and that wasn't good enough for Sakumo.

"Son?" asked Sakumo, announcing his presence to Kakashi.

Kakashi stiffened. "Yes, Father?"

"Spar with me." It was an order, not a request.

"Yes, Father."

Sakumo stood in front of Kakashi. "Begin."

Kakashi was ready.

Charge. Illusion. Didn't work. Use clones. White Chakra Blade against White Chakra Blade. Overwhelmed. Get away! Leap into the air. Bad at wind techniques, use one anyways. Too slow.

LIGHTNING.

Sakumo judged his son. Decent. Not bad. Acceptable, even, if it hadn't been Kakashi. His son used to do better.

Kakashi lay on the ground, still paralyzed from the small bolt of lightning his father had hit him with. _One-handed shortsigning_. Father was fast—not Minato-fast, but regular S-level fast, which was still faster than Kakashi could ever imagine himself being.

Sakumo knelt by his son and reached out to him. A brilliant spark connected them, and Kakashi could move again.

Sakumo the White Fang had mastered his favored element beyond anyone else in Fire Country. He'd surpassed even his mother and her sisters, already famous in their own right before the First World War. Some said he was second only to Hidden Cloud's Lightning Shadow.

"You're still the best of your year, son," said Sakumo. "But you used to be even better."

"I used to have a Copy Wheel," Kakashi grumbled. He sat up and looked at his father.

"And you still won't use your lightning," Sakumo stated, leaving the actual question unasked.

Kakashi looked down at his lap. At the hand that'd killed Rin. "I wanted to see how far I could go without it," he lied. _I don't ever want to see my hand covered in lightning again._

"To truly master something, you need to make it the foundation of everything you do," Sakumo lectured.

"I guess I've mastered letting everyone down, then," Kakashi mumbled, still not looking at his father.

Sakumo frowned, though Kakashi didn't see.

* * *

Sakumo was a ninja first, a clan head second, and a father third. But a true ninja forged a path that satisfied all duties. Every action must be true, to uphold every obligation.

Sakumo's son was limited by his one eye. Kakashi wasn't a sensor; he now had a huge blind spot, and unlike before, he had no bloodline to reveal underneath his protector. Before, Kakashi's merely-good (rather than great) performance with one eye had been acceptable, because he'd only needed to lift his protector to instantly become great—even greater than he would've been if he'd still had both his normal eyes.

So he'd get Kakashi a new eye—a special one. He'd help his son. He'd further improve the status of the Hatake. And he'd remove a known threat to Hidden Leaf. All at once. It was the ideal action.

* * *

Yahiko approached Rin and Obito as they stood at the mouth of the cave. "The three of us have voted. Welcome to Dawn!"

 _The three of them._ This confirmed Rin's suspicions that Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato formed the core of Dawn. There didn't seem to be an official hierarchy, but everyone still orbited around them.

He flashed his winning smile at Rin. "And for the record, if you _want_ me to hit on you, I'd be more than happy to."

Rin groaned and pulled up her mask. Obito twitched at the loss of secrecy. Yahiko immediately stepped back as his eyes widened.

"Whoa, sorry," he said, waving his hands in front of him. "You're _way_ younger than me. I thought you were just—"

"Short?" Rin said. "Even if we were the same age, Yahiko, I am so far from interested in you I might as well be on the moon."

He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well, moving on." He forced himself to look serious. "All right, we trust you enough to let you in. Where's your friend?"

Rin scowled at Obito. She suspected he used illusions to make himself invisible to others, because she sometimes got funny looks from other people when she was talking to him. Like right now, because she was looking pointedly at what was probably empty space to Yahiko.

"Give him a moment, he'll show," she said, still glaring at Obito. "I think I need to talk with him one more time."

Yahiko shrugged. "I'll be waiting with the others. Tell your ghost friend he's welcome too, as long as he doesn't, I dunno, haunt us or anything."

Rin snickered. "Oh, he's not that kind of ghost." She thought she felt Obito glaring at her.

When Yahiko was gone, Obito stepped closer.

"You're much nicer than I am," he said. "If Yahiko had hit on me, I would've threatened to tell Konan about it just to see the fear in his eyes."

Rin didn't like him in the mask; he was meaner with it on. She reached out to pull it off, and because they were alone, he let her.

"If he's that forward about it then she's probably well aware of it, and doesn't care," Rin said. "Besides, he can't hit on you if he doesn't see you. We don't even know if he's attracted to dudes."

"I hope he is. Because I've seen _both_ Nagato and Konan making moon-eyes at him, and Nagato will probably become somehow even angstier if he gets turned down. That's a love triangle that needs to resolve itself fast."

Rin raised an eyebrow at that. "And what would you know about love triangles?"

"I read your books, remember? And I was in one. I had a crush on you, while you liked Kakashi."

Rin sputtered. "What?! Why am I just—why am I just finding out about this now?"

Obito shuffled uncomfortably. "I never told you. I thought... It was easier for me to pretend you maybe liked me back than to ask and... you know."

"Wait, _had_?"

Obito coughed. Every time he thought it couldn't get more awkward, it did.

"Now I'm not sure if it was really a crush in the first place." He'd been even younger and even stupider than now, so excited to make a friend when he entered the ninja academy that he'd been convinced that meant he was supposed to marry her. Because that's what you were supposed to do with the person you liked most, right?

"Besides," he continued, "I'm basically half plant now. I don't think I'm even really human. I'm missing a lot of—"

"Obito," she interrupted. "Step closer." When he was in hugging range she reached out and flicked his ear.

"What was _that_ for?" he whined.

"Just because you don't wanna fuck me doesn't make you a plant," said Rin. "You're clearly human, even if you're a super-weird one, and you're still my friend. Besides, plants are some of the most absurdly sexual life there is. If how you feel has changed, it has nothing to do with being a plant."

She stepped back and chuckled. "Also, for it to be a proper love triangle, Kakashi would've had to have a crush on you in turn. "

Obito burst out laughing at that. Kakashi, have a crush on _him_?

Rin just stood there. "I didn't think it was that funny."

Obito gasped out between breathes. "It's just... he was such an asshole."

The idea of Kakashi having a crush on him was honestly the funniest thing he'd heard in a while. It was _absurd_.

* * *

Kakashi had successfully put off filing his report on Obito's attack for over three weeks now. Given that both his parents were hounding him for it, he considered that an accomplishment.

Of course, now that pen and paper were actually in front of him, he had no idea what to write. He jotted down the first thing he could remember that didn't make his hands clammy just thinking about.

 _Puberty was EXTREMELY kind to Obito_ , Kakashi wrote, underlining "extremely" three times. _And the scars seem scary, but they look good on him_.

He tried sketching Obito. With the Copy Wheel, it would've been easy. With it, he'd needed only a couple short lessons in sketching for intelligence reports last year to instantly become a passible sketch artist. Without it guiding his hands, the results were simply awful.

 _Actually much cuter than this_ , he wrote beneath it, adding an arrow pointing to Obito's poorly-drawn face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Kakashi, you thirsty dog you.
> 
> Yes, there are gay ships in this fic, along with polyamorous relationships. Though keep in mind, I don't write sex and I have no idea how to write romance. You know the casual affection Mikoto and Fugaku have shown for each other so far? That's the limit of my writing skill. Consider yourselves lucky that you'll never have to read me try and describe two characters kissing.
> 
> Kie and Kyusuke are not OCs, just obscure members of the earliest version of Dawn. In canon, they were killed by Obito and Zetsu to keep them from alerting the rest of Dawn about Hanzo's ambush.
> 
> It took a bit of thought, but I've worked out what Danzo's Root actually does. (In my story, not the original series.) What makes Root special, even for black ops, is they're Hidden Leaf's equivalent of the CIA. It's how I write Danzo in this chapter: he's allying with a foreign dictator to crush a rebellion that he sees as a threat to Leaf. He's even providing material aid to said dictator.
> 
> Root aggressively meddles in geopolitics. Unlike ordinary black ops, which undertake specific, well-defined tasks against targeted threats to Leaf, Root has broad, nebulous goals of undermining all _potential_ threats—up to and including, say, undermining the political stability of supposed allies just to ensure their dependency on Leaf or, more relevantly, temporarily allying with nominal enemies under the table in order to crush dangerous revolutionaries.
> 
> And regarding "they have your skin", I'm writing the Uzumaki and Senju as being noticeably darker-skinned than most people in the Land of Fire. Not quite as dark as people from the Land of Lightning, but still noticeably brown. This is partly to maximize the contrast with their historical enemies the Uchiha, who're pale with (usually) black hair. If the Uchiha have classically upper-class looks, then the Senju and Uzumaki are more salt-of-the-earth types. (FYI, there are _a lot_ of naturally dark-skinned east Asians, they just don't appear in the media much because pale skin is considered more desirable.) It's also partly because there's a clear biracial narrative even in canon. Naruto may pass for Japanese (nobody remarks on his race in canon), but he's also the child of Kushina, who's a foreigner and genocide survivor. Kishimoto, of course, did nothing with this, because he's Kishimoto and Naruto's parentage is a retcon. To me, however, the idea that the ninja world's designated messiah is the son of a genocide survivor is something very important. The biracial theme was always there, I'm just cranking it up to 11.
> 
>  **Update:**  
>  If you're wondering when the next chapter is coming, I have a massive update planned for late this summer. A lot's changed in my life since I last updated, but I _have_ been working on this.


End file.
